Luogo e data di registrazione		Lutherse Kerk, Haarlem (Holland) - Settembre 1979
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer / Recording Supervisor		Wolf Erichson
	Recording Engineer		Teije ven Geest
	Prima Edizione LP		Seon (RCA Res Seal) | RL 30390 | 1 LP - durata 45' 22" | (p) 1980 | ANA
	Edizione CD		Sony | SBK 60707 | 1 CD - durata 45' 22 - 45' 22" | (c) 1998 | ADD
	Original Cover		Aniello Falcone (1600-1665) - Music played at social gatherings
	Note		-

Monteverdi's Sixth to Ninth Books of Madrigals contain the musical harvest of about three decades of madrigal writing. Very few of the madrigals, however, resemble the commonly accepted idea of what constitutes a vocal work so designated. Even in the Fifth Book the first signs of change are noticeable: the Renaissance type of madrigal gradually develops into a more sophisticated, emotionally-laden work of art, musically underlining the meaning of individual words and employing obbligato instrumental forces and a continuo bass - the dawn of the Baroque. Nevertheless, even inonody could not put the old madrigal style completely off course. On the contrary, it would seem that Monteverdi was at times actually encouraging the parallel use of the two styles. The “Lamento d’Arianna” is the sole surviving piece from Monteverdi’s opera “Arianna”. The lament of Ariadne cruelly deserted by Theseus, it was regarded by Monteverdi himself as “La più essential parte dell’Opera”. At the première of the opera at Mantua on May 28th, 1608, the audience in the great hall of the “Invaghiti” were literally moved to tears, and, according to a contemporary account, there was hardly a household possessing a harpsichord or lute where the strains of this air could not be heard forever afterwards. In the Sixth Book of Madrigals we find a madrigal setting of this tragic solo scene in which Ariadne pours forth her sorrow, expressing her passionate longing, her bitter disappointment and her boundless love for Theseus with gripping intensity. Two years before his death, in 1641, Monteverdi wrote yet another version of this famous piece, this time using it in a religious context, turning it into a “Pianto della Madonna” (Lament of the Virgin) for his collection “Selva morale e spirituale”. The madrigal “Una donna fra l’altre” (Concertato nel Clavicimbalo) must have been written by the year 1609, as a sacred version of the piece appeared in that year. Although the piece is scored for five voices the writing is seldom really contrapuntal; monodic episodes are already becoming a dominant feature. The madrigal “Tu dormi? Ah crudo core” for four voices and continuo is a setting of a text by Giovanni Battista Guarini, the author of the fashionable pastoral comedy “Il pastor fido”. The piece opens with only three of the voices, the bass finally entering with a chromatic phrase on the words “Io piango”. Monteverdi scored Giambattista Marini’s verses, about the give-away marks that too much passionate kissing leaves behind, for two tenors, bass and continuo. Although the sentiments are obviously supposed to come from the lips of some amorous young maiden, Monteverdi perhaps thought it was too unseemly for female voices to sing. Concrete directions as to the placing of the singers for the performance of the “Lamento della Ninfa” (“Non havea Febo ancora”) indicate that Monteverdi intended a scenic presentation of this particular madrigal. The actual Lamento, in the words of Hans Ferdinand Redlich a piece “in the most delicate of pastels”, is framed by a narration sung by three men’s voices, describing the nymph distractedly rushing from her house at daybreak. In the manner of a Greek chorus the men’s voices assume the role of a sympathetic commentator. The Lamento is written over a ground bass. In the madrigal “Alcun non mi consigli” the jilted lover declares that he does not wish to anger his fair, cruel lady. The tenor, alto and bass are each entrusted with a recitative-like solo passage over the same bass. At the last line of each of these three verses all three voices join forces to sing a canzonetta-like refrain. The text of “Bel pastor”, a dialogue between a shepherd and a shephercless, is again by Ottavio Rinuccini. It is not unlikely that this little seduction scene is an extract from one of Monteverdi’s lost pastoral operas. By contrast the opening of the chamber-duet “Ardo e scopir”, a musical portrait of a helplessly shy youth, is a perfect example of the ‘stile concitato’. The pitiable state of the tongue-tied young wooer at the end of the piece goes right to the heart - Monteverdi achieves here a perfect symbiosis of words and music. Monteverdis “aria” “Ohimè ch’io cado” exerted a tremendous influence on his contemporaries. This remarkable piece, a series of strophic variations over a sustained bass, appeared in the appendix to a publication (1624) of Carlo Milanuzzi’s, another Italian composer. The “aria” “Eri già tutta mia” is taken from the collection “Scherzi musicali” published in 1632. Hans Christoph Worbs English translation by Avril Watts