Monteverdi: 8th book of madrigals

Day 261

Monteverdi: 8th book of madrigals

Concerto Italiano

Ronaldo Allesandri

This is astonishing music.

I first encountered Monteverdi at school. We sang Beatus Vir and I also remember listening to Chiome d’oro and Zefiro torna in A level class and being amazed at the chromatic harmony. Since then I have heard most of the major works but I don’t have a close knowledge of the madrigals so this was a good opportunity to explore some previously unknown music.

I said above that this is astonishing music - how much more astonishing it must have been to listeners at the time. For those who have grown up with polyphonic church music the continuo-based chordal writing, the vigorous word setting and the use of instruments would have seemed as startling as the Rite of Spring was to audiences 100 years ago. There is great beauty in the music as well as drama, humour and pathos. In many ways it is more modern than much music written 100 years later. There can be few composers who changed the whole course of music in the way that Monteverdi did.