piante ombrose

"L'Arpeggiata - Christina Pluhar: Cavalli - L’Amore innamorato "Piante Ombrose"" (Watch on YouTube)

"In Cavalli’s oeuvre there is also an isolated example of Mi tonality, “Piante ombrose” Calisto, I, 2, c. 10v (Example 1.19).
 This aria is set in what seems to be E major because the third degree is raised (G is sharp), but the sixth grade is lowered (all but one of the Cs are natural). Apart for the ascending tetrachord figure, the scale employed in “Piante Ombrose” features the characteristic lowered second degree and
Phrygian cadences. The uniqueness of this case remains puzzling.
 “Piante ombrose,” which is a lament aria for Calisto who mourns her burned, dead forest, is unusual in that it is based on an ascending tetrachord with a major third (E-G#). Other lament arias, however, are in Ut tonalities (Example 1.6 and 1.8), and some other laments are based on an ascending scale (Example 1.5 and 1.6). It is possible that the major ascending tetrachord employed in “Piante ombrose” was symbolically chosen for its many sharps; the harshness of this tonality, which was enhanced in the non-equal temperament, was probably chosen to express the desiccated gruesomeness of the forest skeletons. Yet “Piante ombrose” remains an exceptional case of the use of the Phrygian mode, which could have been influenced by the characteristics attributed to this key by Renaissance theorists such as Zarlino."
- Francesco Dalla Vecchia