Customer Reviews

Monteverdi: Madrigals Book I

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I don't pretend to be an expert on the Monteverdian madrigal. But I know good singing when I hear it, and there's plenty of that on this disc. Marco Longhini conducts a group of Italian singers and instrumentalists collectively called 'Deliciae Musicae' and they couldn't have a more apt name--their delight (and ours) in their performance of this music is evident from start to finish.

Monteverdi's First Book of Madrigals, primarily for five voices a cappella or lightly accompanied, was published when he was only nineteen in 1587. The texts are secular and mostly of the 'to die upon a kiss' genre. There are some humorous examples in addition to the earnest swooning and pining sort. And towards the end of the Book there is a triptych, the second and third of which are parodies of the first - rather clever, too. All of these madrigals are set to meltingly beautiful polyphonic music of the late Renaissance/early Baroque. It was later that Monteverdi took music in an entirely new direction.

Which brings us to the remainder of the disc: a collection of Monteverdi's madrigals that were not published in his lifetime, some of them much later than Book I. One of them, once thought apocryphal but later acknowledged to be by Monteverdi, is the extended 'Lamento di Olimpia', similar to the much better-known 'Lamento d'Arianna,' and comes from Ariosto's 'Orlando Furioso.' It tells of the betrayal and abandonment of a Dutch noblewoman by her lover. One can hear in this masterpiece the same kind of drama one finds in Monteverdi's better known operas.

The musicianship, production, notes are all exemplary. A hearty recommendation, particularly at this budget price.

Recently I posted a slightly negative review of Delitiae Musicae's performance of Book Three of the madrigals of Claudio Monteverdi, in which I expressed skepticism about the use of male falsetto countertenors in a repertoire that was composed at a time when virtuosic singing by women was highly valued. Those reservations do not apply to this performance of the madrigals from Book 1, written when Monteverdi was only 19 years old and still thoroughly imbued with the tenor-structured polyphonic style of the late Renaissance, when madrigals were just beginning to be distinguished from the older sacred polyphony of the Franco-Flemish school. The seamless blend of male voices achieved with countertenors by Musicae Delitiae perfectly suits these pre-operatic madrigals, with more of idealized serenity than of amorous frenzy about them. Scott Morrison's earlier review is exactly right; this is a performance of silky-suave beauty, as good as any I've heard from such magnificent ensembles as Concerto Italiano and La Venexiana. Now I'll have to listen to MD's performance of Book 2, to hear whether the magic persists.

Nota bene, anglophones: Italian singers have staked claim to the madrigal repertory, and "we" have a lot of homework to do to catch up.