The libretto is drawn from Torquato Tasso's La Gerusalemme Liberata (Jerusalem Delivered)., Canto XII, 52–62, 64–68), a Romance set against the backdrop of the First Crusade, when Godfrey of Bouillon conquered Jerusalem.[1] Monteverdi composed it for the 1624 carnival season in Venice[2] when it was first performed in the palace of Girolamo Mocenigo.[1]
The plot is about a Christian knight, Tancredi, and a Saracen girl, Clorinda, who are lovers, but meet in battle not recognizing each other because their faces are covered by armour. Tancredi hits Clorinda mortally, and realizes only after removing her helmet who she is. He baptizes her before she dies, and she sees Heaven opening.[1] A narrator (testo) tells about most of the action, but the combatants should also act.
Il Combattimento was printed in 1638, with several other pieces in Monteverdi's eighth book of madrigals which were written over a period of many years.
Music
In Il Combattimento, the voices and instruments form two separate entities. The strings are divided into four parts instead of the then usual five – an innovation that was not generally adopted by European composers until much later.[1] The music begins with madrigals. Monteverdi tried to create the "agitated" style (concitato) which Plato described in his Rhetoric: "Take that harmony that would fittingly imitate the utterances of a brave man who is engaged in warfare".[1] Different sounds convey the battle, such as the trotting of a horse, trumpet fanfares, the combatants circling each other, and the movement of their swords.[1] For the last of these, the music has the second earliest known use of pizzicato, in which the players are instructed to set down their bows and use two fingers of their right hand to pluck the strings. To illustrate excitement, he arrived at the earliest use of string tremolo, in which a note is played in fast repetition. Monteverdi had difficulties getting the players to perform it correctly.[1]
