Monte verde, CLAUDIO

1567-1643. Italian musician, most notable genius in the coterie of reformers whose labors produced the lyric drama. (See OPERA.) Violinist to the Duke of Mantua, then ducal chapel master, finally chapel master at St. Mark's, Venice. As composer of secular pieces in the polyphonic style, he introduced innovations, such as the use of di onances without preparation and the dominant seventh chord, and showed a tendency away from the church modes and toward the modern system of tonality. His chief significance is in the history of opera. In Orfeo, 1608, Arianna, a ballet, Ballo delle ingrate, and an anomalous semi-dramatic piece called Il Com batt i men to di Tancredi e Clorinda, he opened the way to modern dramatic music, especially instrumental. The familiar tremolo of the violins is his invention, and was first used in the Com batt i men to.