o composer represents the transition from the Renaissance to the
Baroque better than Claudio Monteverdi does. A survey of his
madrigals shows a most abrupt transition from polyphony to
homophony, and his opera Orfeo, first performed in 1607, stands as the
first masterpiece of the early Baroque. Orfeo combined elements of the old
style as well as the new. On the one hand it was written in the new
homophonic style, as established by the Camerata. But on the other hand,
the instrumentation, while showing certain innovations, still hearkened back
to earlier customs.