One of the key German composers before Bach with over 500 surviving individual pieces, Heinrich Schütz mainly composed church music. Credited with bringing the Italian style to Germany, he continued its evolution from the Renaissance into the early Baroque. Despite living most of his long life in Germany, Schütz made two trips to Venice in his twenties. The first was between 1609 and 1613, during which he studied under Giovanni Gabrieli. The second trip occurred in the late 1620s, possibly to meet and study under Monteverdi. These visits significantly influenced Schütz’s music as he blended the ornate and theatrical Venetian style with the more subdued Lutheran tradition. This album explores his solo cantatas alongside examples of the brilliant and virtuosic Venetian-style instrumental music.
Roland Wilson has a remarkable talent for handling the music of the 16th and 17th centuries. His impressive reconstruction of Heinrich Schutz's Dafne, the first German opera, remains well remembered. His current work will undoubtedly find it's place alongside it: This is how the grand Festive Mass may have sounded, with which all of Venice in 1631 celebrated the end of a plague epidemic that had claimed a third of the population. The Doge fulfilled his vow and commissioned the construction of the Santa Maria della Salute church. The Serenissima Repubblica rejoiced, and Claudio Monteverdi provided music whose splendor was hardly to be surpassed. Among other things, he used "slide trumpets", which allowed for extraordinary tones: they can be seen in old paintings and are heard - reconstructed - in this recording. This is how a republic once expressed it's gratitude.
Dolente Partita - Madonna e Maddalena - Works by Monteverdi and his contemporaries
Coviello
CD
$22.99Apr 05, 2024
The depiction of emotions came to the fore in the music of the late 16th century. Religious content is foregrounded, told from the perspective of the protagonists in order to generate compassion and understanding. In Tarquinio Merula's Canzonetta sopra la nanna, Mary's love for her child is just as palpable as her fear of his impending fate. Sacred songs such as the Salve Regina are transformed by Claudio Monteverdi into an intimate prayer to the Virgin Mary. Placing secular texts in a spiritual context was another means used by early Baroque composers. Claudio Monteverdi rewrote the then-popular Lamento d'Arianna as Lamento della Maddalena; Arianna, who laments for her beloved Theseus, becomes Marie Maddalena, who has been abandoned by Jesus. The Aria sopra la Romanesca by Paolo Quagliati is a reinterpretation of a love sonnet. "Working out and showing all these emotions in an almost theatrical style is the appeal of this music. We particularly enjoyed doing that," says Pia Davila.
Ménestrel-the Canadian early music ensemble of soprano-violinist Janelle Lucyk and tenor-lutenist Kerry Bursey-mix ancient repertoire with Canadian oral folk traditions. In an age defined by acceleration and artifice, their debut album, Ménestrel, reaches backward, not to escape the modern world, but to examine it's emotional roots. They gather songs drawn from several centuries and traditions, from the luminous melancholy of John Dowland to the ardent intimacy of Barbara Strozzi, from the refined contours of French Renaissance chanson to the rugged sincerity of Celtic and English folk ballads. The name ménestrel refers to the medieval minstrel, a musician who moved between written and oral traditions and carried songs across regions and generations. Janelle and Kerry draw on that lineage as they bring early music and folk repertoire into close conversation. Their approach highlights the continuity between these traditions, focusing on clarity, text, and the shared expressiveness that links courtly song with vernacular melody. Formed in 2019, Ménestrel bridges historical performance and Canadian oral folk traditions, and the ensemble has given performances and collaborated with singers and choirs in all of Canada's 13 provinces and territories. Janelle Lucyk is a singer and producer among an emerging generation of Canadian artists specializing in early music and historically informed performance, taking ideas from conception to the stage. Kerry Bursey is a tenor and plucked string instrumentalist whose voice is appreciated for it's luminous quality, and as a sought-after lutenist, he is also invested in the rare practice of self-accompaniment in early and folk music of northwestern traditions. Their concerts aim to demystify early music, juxtaposing it next to folk songs, which are songs of the people.
The oratorios of Giacomo Carissimi (1605-1674) are seminal works in the early history of a genre that combines sacred narrative, theatrical expression, and musical virtuosity to create a new, dramatic form. Of the mostly Old Testament stories to which Carissimi's oratorios refer, the vivid tale of Jonah stands out. During his divine mission at sea, the biblical hero is caught in a storm and swallowed by a whale. Carissimi shapes this material into a fast-paced plot with emotionally powerful solo recitatives, interspersed with a complex array of choral passages-including a striking double chorus depicting the storm. Who better to interpret Carissimi's expressive music than Giovanni Antonini, one of the foremost conductors on the period-instrument scene? The performance also features the historically informed performance ensemble Il Giardino Armonico, with instrumentation specially adapted to the Bavarian Radio Chorus and the unique tonal qualities of the oratorio. It's artistic director Giovanni Antonini has worked with the Bavarian Radio Chorus for many years, with critically acclaimed concerts featuring works ranging from the early Baroque period to the First Viennese School-and he also finds the perfect sound for Carissimi's music. With choral music by Claudio Monteverdi and Orlando di Lasso, this album also traces the development of dramatic vocal music in the transition from the late Renaissance motet to the more emotionally expressive interpretations of the early Baroque period. The famous Lamento d'Arianna is the only surviving piece from the lost opera Ariadne by Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643), who reworked this lament into an equally expressive madrigal in 1610. Excerpts from the two legendary and mysterious cycles Prophetiae Sibyllarum and Lagrime di San Pietro by the Wittelsbach court composer Orlando di Lasso (1532-1594) conclude the album, allowing us to experience masterpieces of the motet style, to which the Bavarian Radio Chorus regularly devotes itself in historically informed performances. With it's powerful double-choir storm scene, the oratorio Jonah is a highlight of high Baroque choral music. Carissimi's oratorios are key milestones in the development of the genre. Featuring the renowned early music ensemble Il Giardino Armonico, led by Giovanni Antonini, with whom the BR Chorus has already performed programmes to high acclaim, this release also includes the madrigal version of the legendary Lamento d'Arianna by Claudio Monteverdi, the master of early Baroque opera. Also including excerpts from two important cycles of works by the Munich Renaissance master composer Orlando di Lasso, this dynamic live recording captures performances in Munich's Prinzregententheater.
Monteverdi: Frammenti / Koetsveld, Le Nuove Musiche
Brilliant Classics
CD
$6.99$13.99Save 50%Sep 22, 2023
On this album, we find a wonderful collection of often short sacred works by Monteverdi, all published in compilations made by others. Parts of psalms and hymns of all descriptions make up the texts – and always in the style that we know so well from, among others, the concertos in the Vespro della Beata Vergine; the pieces from the Selva Morale e Spirituale (a collection by Monteverdi himself, containing only his own music); and the posthumous collection from 1650, Messa a quattro voci ed salmi.
The repertoire on this album derives from multiple sources and was probably included in the various collections because the compiler simply liked it. Besides the polyphonic, madrigal-like pieces such as Adoramus te, Christe adoramus te and Domine in furore, the often highly virtuosic duets and solo pieces stand out. Sometimes, for example in Salve o regina, the embellishments are written out, which in turn teaches us a lot about how Monteverdi envisioned them.
With these songs from seventeenth-century Europe (Monteverdi and Purcell) and modern Latin America (Rodriguez, Jara, and others), two golden ages of song are juxtaposed on de Pasion Mortal. This is a vivid album that invites listeners into this wonderful, evocative music and to reflect on eternal human themes: love, loss, fear, ecstasy, and much more besides. Nicholas Mulroy, Elizabeth Kenny and Toby Carr offer performances of songs that are separated by time and space, but united by much else, and find expression in music full of beauty and unflinching truth. This pairing of old and new conveys a sense that, while the world turns and changes, people do not.
In Monteverdi's Lament, the Erik Westberg Vocal Ensemble presents two contemporary works that reimagine poetry and music connected to the legacy of Claudio Monteverdi. Drawing on 17th-century sources, these compositions set historical and contemporary choir music in dialogue with interactive technologies and the hyperorgan-an instrument enhanced with digital control functions that allow performance beyond the traditional keyboard. The result is an exploration of the creative tension between past and present, echoing the spirit of innovation that shaped Monteverdi's music in the early 1600s. Carl Unander-Scharin's Lamento è più takes inspiration from Ottavio Rinuccini's libretto for the lost opera Arianna, originally set by Monteverdi in 1607. Created in collaboration with choreographer Åsa Unander-Scharin, this 2023 work expands the expressive potential of the 17th-century text through a dynamic interplay of choreography, choir, and hyperorgan.
This substantial set dedicated to the vocal music of Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643) features the great cycle undertaken (to date) by Krijn Koetsveld and the singers of Le Nuove Musiche: all nine books of madrigals, the music in Monteverdi collections such as the Selva Morale e Spirituale (1641) and the posthumous Messa a quattro voci ed salmi (1650), and the individual works by Monteverdi that were compiled in the collections of others, the so-called Fragments. To this is joined the cycle of operas directed by Sergio Vartolo and sung by casts of Italian early music specialists, including the first recording of the five-act version of Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria. These thoroughly researched, historically informed interpretations demonstrate Monteverdi’s pioneering and transformative role in the emergence and development of staged, dramatic vocal music. Also featured are the grand Vespers – sacred music in the Gregorian plainchant tradition but on an operatic scale – in a fantastic recording with fine Italian soloists and authentic period instruments including the early brass of La Pifarescha. Federico Bardazzi and Ensemble Felice make scrupulous interpretative decisions about the order of movements, interpolating the choral motets within the prescribed sequence of psalms to great effect. Finally, there are Monteverdi’s youthful three-part canzonettas, written when the composer was 17. They are rather simpler than the madrigals, both to sing and to appreciate, but their musical worth is amply demonstrated by the largely female voices of Armoniosoincanto joined by a mixed period-instrument ensemble of flutes, violas, theorbo and harpsichord. They impart just the right light-hearted mood and dramatic impact to the playful, folkloric secular strophic poetry.
Genius innovator - inspiring past and present! Claudio Monteverdi lived in Italy during a very turbulent time and was one of the great designers of the new style in music. As a young man, he learned the ancient laws of composing, especially from Marcantonio Ingegneri. Under his inspiration, he wrote his first book of madrigals. We can follow his life closely through the final 9 books of madrigals. Each book is a new moment in his development as a composer. Ultimately, he gets his dream job in Venice as maestro di cappella, but he writes operas and other musical spectacles for other courts, including Mantua, Milan, Turin, and Parma. He enjoyed the recognition that finally came for that little boy from insignificant Cremona. The book consists of 9 chapters, one per madrigal book, and has 128 pages in total. Looking from Monteverdi’s perspective, and also from the perspective of the performer, the contemporary enthusiast. Mesmerized by the beautiful courtly poetry, but also intrigued by the innovator Monteverdi, who is always looking for other ways to express emotion in music in a special way. Each chapter focuses on one characteristic madrigal. The book comes with a CD so you can listen to all the wonderful works.
Monteverdi: Complete Madrigals / Koetsveld, Le Nuove Musiche
Brilliant Classics
CD
$58.99Mar 15, 2019
The Dutch musician Krijn Koetsveld has often conducted Bach, and he was founder-director of The Netherlands Bach Ensemble. However, it is the name of Claudio Monteverdi with which he is indelibly associated: he first encountered the composer’s music in 1972, and describes it as ‘love at first sight, which never passed’. This relationship matured over time into the foundation of a soloistic vocal group, Le Nuove Musiche, with the technical skills, the scholarly understanding and the musical sensitivities to do justice to the highly intimate, sophisticated genre of Renaissance madrigal, of which the nine books by Monteverdi represent its summit and fullest flowering. Recording all nine books, and several other mini-dramas and vocal chamber works which fall within the genre but outside the books themselves, began in 2004 and was only completed in 2018. Koetsveld contributes a lively and authoritative introduction to the whole project in the booklet. He remarks: ‘Nine books of madrigals, all of them unique, contributing to the transition from the Renaissance to the baroque, a musical history in sound.’ As the series has been released, its importance has been widely recognised in the critical press. In 2017, Fanfare observed: ‘Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda is representative of Koetsveld’s approach. The harmonic outline of the continuo is restrained and precise, the tutti playing of the strings articulated clearly. Both instrumental and concerted textures are so transparent one could take dictation to the recording. In a luminous performance as the narrator, Falco van Loon is focused and crystalline; Wendy Roobol is a clean, nimble Clorinda. Arnout Lems is the most dramatic of the soloists, voicing Tancredi in a rich but gentle baritone.’
John Butt and the Dunedin Consort present the 1610 Vespers in its customary order with no chant additions, accepting the view that this ‘work’ is a collection of sacred pieces deliberately ordered in the general shape of an ‘imaginary’ Vespers service. In other words, the Vespers as most people know it.
The result is a ‘chamber’ version in which clarity of detail and the beauty of individual voices (recorded fairly closely and in many places clearly recognisable) provide an alternative to the grand gestures and bold colours of other more monumental performances. It also allows for plenty of attention to text, not just in the solo motets but in the larger psalm-settings as well.
The sound is first-rate as ever from Linn, with a sampled Italian chest organ discreetly adding warmth and incisiveness. With so many Vespers recordings out there, this one joins the ranks of those with both a character of its own and something to say.
Monteverdi: Vespro Della Beata Vergine / Pichon, Pygmalion
HARMONIA MUNDI
CD
$23.84Feb 16, 2024
After Stravaganza d'amore, their superb album of late sixteenth-century Florentine music, Raphaël Pichon and Pygmalion returned to Italy, this time to Mantua. Here they offer us their reading of one of the peaks of sacred music from this period: Monteverdi's Vespers. Revealing like no other interpreters the poignant interiority of these pieces, they bring out to the full their inherent sense of theatre for an overwhelming experience.
“What a whimsical and diverse play between the poles of "nature" and "art" unfolds here! Rich in color and immensely playful, the Ensemble Sonorità knows how to plumb the space between these poles with the artfully assembled tones and sounds. But is it still "nature" when baroque composers appropriate birdsong for their works? Is it borrowed or not already actually domesticated or even enhanced nature when we read about "to hit the nature"? English as well as French and Italian works integrate on this album the proximity to nature or are inspired by it. It is not only for the pleasure of a "Bird Fancyer" at that time, it is also for the pleasure of a listener of today.” (Conrad Steinmann)
