Didn't know until this week that Peri sang Orpheus himself. Wrote it, cast himself, stood up there in Florence in 1600 and did the part. Which I enjoy, because it's exactly what a bandleader does when he can't explain the feel and just takes the mic.

The players were behind the scenery. Harpsichord, a big lute, a chitarrone, one of those lirone things sawing away underneath — four men out of sight, holding the chords while the singer talked his way through the line. That's the whole trick of it. The tune wasn't driving; the words were driving, and the band followed the words. Rhythm section logic, four hundred years early. Somebody back there counting the singer in and nobody in the hall knowing his name.

And Caccini, who had his own singers to look after, got his numbers into the score — his settings, for his people, in another man's opera, at a Medici wedding. Then put out his own version of the same libretto, and got it printed first. Rinuccini's words, Ovid underneath that, Orpheus going down after his wife the way he always does. Two composers, one set of lyrics, one gig.

First session I know of where somebody slipped a B-side onto the A.