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Early Italian Opera in Modern Editions:
Caccini, Peri, Cesti, and Albinoni

Prominent among A-R's series Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era are its volumes devoted to early Italian opera, including one of the first extant operas, Jacopo Peri's Euridice edited by the late Howard Mayer Brown. This critical edition makes available to modern performers and scholars a work that was influential in its day and continues to serve as a touchstone in the history of opera.

Another famous opera, Antonio Cesti's Il Pomo d'oro, is also available from A-R. The edition of Carl B. Schmidt makes available in a modern edition the third and fifth acts, portions of the opera only recently recovered. The previously known sections extended to the prologue and the first, second, and fourth acts only and were published by Guido Adler in Denkmaler der Tonkunst in Österreich (in bands 6 and 9). Schmidt's edition brings to light the rest of the Il Pomo d'oro, so that individuals may have access to the entire opera.

In addition, Pimpinone of Tomaso Albinoni is in a critical edition prepared by Michael Talbot. This comic intermezzo was popular for over 30 years and influenced other music in this style. While scholars of Baroque opera may know better Telemann's setting of the same story, Albinoni's Pimpinone is an excellent example of the comic intermezzo as the genre emerged.

Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era also includes modern, critical editions of both the 1602 and 1614 publications of Le nuove musiche by Giulio Caccini, edited by H. Wiley Hitchcock. These volumes are important for the theory and practice of monody at the beginning of the seventeenth century. These are the only modern editions of the complete texts currently available.

Giulio Caccini
Le Nuove musiche
Edited by H. Wiley Hitchcock
B 9

Giulio Caccini
Nuove musiche e nuova maniera di scriverle (1614)
Edited by H. Wiley Hitchcock
B 28

Jacopo Peri
Euridice: An Opera in One Act, Five Scenes
Edited by Howard Mayer Brown
B 36-37

Antonio Cesti
Il Pomo d'oro: Music for Acts III and V from Modena, Biblioteca Estense, Ms. Mus. E. 120
Edited by Carl B. Schmidt
B 42

Tomaso Albinoni
Pimpinone: Intermezzi comici musicali
Edited by Michael Talbot
B 43

Of Related Interest

Jacopo Peri
Le Varie musiche and Other Songs
Edited by Tim Carter
B 50