Classical Music

“The voice of the Narrator (Testo) shall be clear, steady and with good pronunciation, (…) in keeping with the passions of the oration”. Thus the recommendation by Claudio Monteverdi in the preface to his Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, published in Venice in 1638. Monteverdi's remarks on performance together with his actual music underline the tension between passions – here between love and death, (Amore e morte, as the present collection is entitled), a combination which most people associate with a romantic aesthetic or sensibility. Yet an awareness of this association is better served through Monteverdi's fusion of words and music, heightening the perception of each by the combination of the two. Thus Monteverdi laid the foundations of opera, a genre destined to be as popular as it would be widespread in centuries to come. And his influence would be felt throughout all its stylistic variations each time words were “clothed” in music.

Monteverdi: Vespers of the Blessed Virgin 1610

Classical Music

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Classical Music

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As with scarcely any other work of the 17th c., Claudio Monteverdi’s Vespers has found its way into today’s repertoire. + Nevertheless, the Vespers still leaves open many questions. + The present recording is based on the new edition by Carus, which takes up oft-discussed issues concerning scoring possibilities, performance practice, transpositions and liturgical unity and invites an individual musical approach to the challenges the Vespers presents. + Two of Germany’s finest ensembles, the Lautten Compagney Berlin and amarcord, have accepted this challenge.

MADRIGALS

A previously unpublished recording of six of Monteverdi's madrigals has been attached to the re-edition of this album. This outstanding performance comes from a concert held on 19 May 1991 in Tours. In this recording, the composer's genius and the talent and work of the singers miraculously combined. All the madrigals on the album, performed by Il Canto, are small masterpieces, but there are real gems among them, pieces that we experience deeply with each performance. The most beautiful of them is Piagne e sospira to a text by Tasso. The music, enhancing the sombre mood of the poem, triggers intense emotions in the listener. S, ch'io vorrei morire, on the other hand, is a perfect erotic, painting the elation of the act of love with music. The terrible despair of an abandoned lover is contained in Ah, dolente partita. On the other side of the mood, one can situate two light, virtuoso madrigals Io mi son giovinetta and Quel augellin che canta.'

Classical Music

MONTEVERDI: Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda / Madrig

The first masterpiece of sacred music is undoubtedly the mythical Vespers of Monteverdi, first published in Venice in 1610. Quintessential of the great Italian polychoral style of writing, with its choirs, initially distributed throughout the entire volume of the Basilica San Marco for spectacular effects, the Vespers are here raised to the heavenly spheres by Raphael Pichon: every aspect of the Royal Chapel of Versailles (1710) is being put to use to magnify the music echoing from the Royal Tribune to that of the Great Organ. The Pygmalion choir and orchestra stands flawless, the soloists are overwhelming and the emotional power released by this interpretation set in space and light is stunning: its beauty seems never ending. The choral monumental piece by Monteverdi, which crystallizes the height of the baroque, meets the highest standards defended by Raphaël Pichon. To be more intimate with God than ever before...

Monteverdi's Orfeo, first performed in 1607, generates a special excitement because it is the first unquestioned masterpiece of opera. Notable for it's precise orchestration and powerful drama it was a groundbreaking work. It concerns the legend of Orpheus, the demi-god whose music had the power to conquer the forces of Hell and to bring his wife back, briefly, to life. The extracts used in this introduction are from Naxos's full recording; it uses authentic period instruments, which serve to evoke the early Baroque period of the opera's composition.

Classical Music