Giulio Caccini

Giulio Caccini served as singer, lutenist, harpist and violist at the Medici court, where his performances helped establish the expressive possibilities of accompanied solo song. He is credited with creating the stile recitativo, a declamatory vocal manner that reshaped the function of singing within larger dramatic forms and thereby accelerated the emergence of opera, oratorio and the solo song repertoire. Among his stage compositions were four theatrical works, three of them operas, one being the 1600 setting of Euridice; these were supplemented by an extensive body of independent songs whose purpose was to stir both intellect and emotion. In the 1602 collection Le nuove musiche Caccini supplied written instructions for realizing the new style, prescribing precise ornamentation that singers were expected to follow exactly rather than improvise. This requirement marked a decisive shift toward composer-controlled performance practice. The most enduring of his songs, Amarilli, continues to appear regularly in recital programs and vocal anthologies.