Luogo e data di registrazione		Abbey Road Studios, London (Inghilterra) - 4-6 novembre 1981
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer / Engineer		Gerd Berg / Neville Boyling
	Prima Edizione LP		EMI Electrola "Reflexe" - 1C 069-1466941 - (1 lp) - durata 55' 26" - (p) 1983 - DMM (Analogico)
	Prima Edizione CD		EMI "Classics" - CDM 7 63065 2 - (1 cd) - durata 55' 26" - (c) 1989 - ADD
	Edizione CD		EMI "Classics" - 8 26532 2 - (1 cd) - durata 55' 25" - (c) 2000 - ADD
	Note		-

MANNERIST MADRIGALS D’India: Interdette speranz’e van desio Sigismondo d'lndia’s early life can be guessed at only from scattered references. In his first book of madrigals, he calls himself “Palermitano”, and in subsequent works expands this to “nobile Palermitano”. No trace of a d’lndia family has been found in Palermo; there was one in Naples, but Sigismondo has not been linked with it yet. He became known as a young composer at the turn of the century, so it is likely that he was born around 1580. He spent the first decade of the century travelling to various courts, and was in Mantua in 1606, where he no doubt met Monteverdi. In that year he published his Libro Primo de Madrigali a Cinque voci, dedicated to the Duke of Mantua, and including works which he had presented to him in manuscript earlier in the year. The opening and closing items are settings of poems by Rinuccini, a poet favoured in Mantua whom Monteverdi was to set memorably two years later; most of the remaining texts are by Guarini, but Interdette speranz’ e van desio uses the work of a poet from a century earlier, Jacopo Sannazaro. The sonnet is divided into three sections, the third of which (the sestet) is musically longer than the other two combined. The first part is a fine example of writing that is dramatic but nevertheless consistently and effectively contrapuntal. In spite of the octave leap of the first theme, nearly every phrase is a falling one. The second part is more homophonic, but the third, with an ABB structure, reverts to the pliant-writing of the first. Monteverdi: Zefiro torna Born in Cremona in 1567, Monteverdi worked in Mantua from about 1590 until he was sacked in 1612. He spent the rest of his life in Venice, where his sixth book of madrigals was published in 1614. It includes music he had composed in Mantua, beginning with a reworking for five voices of the famous lament for Arianna in the opera he had written with Rinuccini for the celebrations in 1608 surrounding the wedding of Francesco Gonzaga and Margaret of Savoy. Book VI contains settings of two Petrarch sonnets, and it is an interesting coincidence that one of the few surviving letters from this period of Monteverdi’s life mentions that he was setting two sonnets at the request of the Duke of Mantua. The composition of one of them took six days, plus two more for trying it out and revising it. Zefiro torna is in some ways quite old-fashioned, though the extra-metrical flourishes on tempo and ciel would not have been written earlier, nor would some of the clashing passing notes. The contrast in mood between octave and sestet of the sonnet is here made by change of key and time, but with a telling reversion to the opening motion when the poet mentions birds and flowers. Monteverdi: Batto, qui, pianse The sixth book contrasts settings of the source of Italian lyric poetry, Petrarch, with those of Marino, begetter of the most recent fashion. Marino was closely involved with the poetry of the past, but strove after extravagant and wonderful effects, often depending upon recollection of earlier poems. Batto, qui, pianse is described as concertato nel clavicembano. It is difficult to see anything which makes the harpsichord more appropriate than any other continuo instrument - a problem in performing music of the period is that there is little contemporary evidence for establishing criteria of suitability for harpsichord, organ, lute, chitarrone, lirone, cello or viol. Here the harpsichord not only accompanies the ensemble, but supports a duet for two sopranos. This section, Deh mira, is set off from the rest of the madrigal harmonically too, quickly moving to E major, while elsewhere the tonality leans in a flatward direction. Word painting abounds, with flickering flames, falling scales and a prominent diminished octave. Monteverdi: Ogni amante è guerrier Monteverdi entitled his eighth collection Madrigali guerrieri et amorosi, His preface describes how he first set Il combattirnento di Tancredi e Clorinda; after a successful performance in 1624, he composed other works of the kind. Ogni amante è guerrier seems, from the mention in the text of Ferdinand Ernest as a victorious soldier, to date from the 1630s, and was probably composed for one of the ceremonies attending his coronation as Emperor at the end of 1636. The text is a slightly revised version of a poem by Rinuccini based on one of Ovid’s Amores; Rinuccini published it with a dedication to Jacopo Corsi, a pioneer of the stile rappresentativo who had worked with him in the 1590s, and had died in 1602. Although in his preface to Book VIII Monteverdi quotes from Plato the desirability of imitating musically the speech and accents of a brave man engaged in war, most of the martial music is amorous metaphor: the first four words of this work are enough to make that clear. The first section, for two tenors, runs through the range of Monteverdi's martial phrases, mostly in triple time. The bass represents a gentleman of leisure, his idleness disturbed by love; this leads, not entirely logically, to praise of Ferdinand. The third section is a brief recitative for the separated lover. Finally, the three voices join together; perhaps we should see in l\/lonteverdi’s late madrigal style, as used here, a synthesis of the dynamic martial style and the recitative, which the previous sections had used separately. Monteverdi: Hor che ’l ciel e la terra The words for this magnificent composition are another sonnet by Petrarch, set for six voices with two violins and continuo. Although placed in the martial section of Book VIII, the dramatic range covers a much wider scope; the repeated guerra is only one of a variety of illustrations of the poetic imagery. Monteverdi may have taken the idea for the plain choral opening from the setting by Orazio Vecchi, but goes much further, with all six voices low in their registers, and with no change of note till the third line of the text. The end is equally memorable, lunge being set a drawn-out phrase slowly descending nearly two octaves, first sung solo, then repeated by all the voices, with soprano and bass in contrary motion - one of music’s finest cadences. D’India: Five Madrigals on words from Guarini’s “Il pastor fido” Guarini wrote his pastoral drama Il pastor fido in the beginning of the 1580s. The pastoral dramas of Virgil and his Greek model Theocritus had already inspired many an Italian poet but Guarini gave the convention a new lease of life, reinvigorating it and relating it more closely to contemporary poetic sensibilities. He also must have been a master of publicity: few works can have received so much attention before publication. It was written at Ferrara, a court which pioneered the new style of soloistic vocal chamber music. Performances were few; one of the earliest was at the court of Savoy at Turin, where d’India was later to spend the most fruitful years of his life. There were also attempts to stage it at Mantua; the earliest, in 1584, was unsuccessful, since the play had not yet been completed so the poet would not supply his text; but later, after much effort and delay, performances were eventually given there in 1598. Composers rushed to set passages from the play as madrigals. D’lndia too followed the fashion, but he also produced an extended setting of the closing scene of Act IV, in five successive madrigals of his eighth book of 1624. It may seem strange that only a few sections are set as solo or dialogue; but the tradition of Pastor fido composition was madrigalian. In spite of its influence on early opera librettos, the play was not intended for performance by singers, and composers chose to use the most affective manner possible. What is distinctive about d’lndia’s style is the way he contrives to write a sort of dramatic monody but with five voices, mostly moving homophonically. Occasionally there are madrigalian passages, such as the setting of morir at the end of Ferir quel petto; but frequently the whole ensemble moves as one. The pastoral idea can seem strange and remote to us; but the mythical Arcadia provides characters through whose persona poets and composers could imagine intense passions in a concentrated way which would have felt false in a more realistic context. Monteverdi: O come sei gentile Guarini’s poem will be familiar to lovers of the English madrigal, since Gibbons' Dainty fine bird is translated from it. It uses various images and ideas common in madrigalian verse, the most recognisable to musicians being the reference to Arcadelt’s famous setting of Il bianco e dolce cigno (poetic inspiration for Gibbons’ most famous madrigal). The bird here is not identified as a swan, but the lover’s singing leads to the same end. Monteverdi’s setting for two voices does not quote earlier examples, but the listener will recognise a few bars which he will associate with Pleni sunt caeli rather than vivi cantando. This comes from the seventh book of madrigals, entitled Concerto, of 1619, which shows his complete mastery of the smaller-scale, soloistic compositional manner. The duet alternates passages in imitation with movement in thirds and inevitable cadential suspensions. Monteverdi: Gira il nemico insidioso Giulio Strozzi, the poet of Gira il nemico, was librettist of two of Monteverdi’s operas which have not survived: Licori finta pazza (1627) and Proserpina rapita (1630). The poet has given him the opportunity to bring forth all the military devices, since we are back with the 1638 madrigali guerrieri. Some are borrowed from the repertoire of battle calls - butta la sella, for instance, is recognisably the same as that quoted by Jannequin in his battle chanson - a work which, though a century old, had been reprinted in Venice, borrowed by Andrea Gabrieli and may well have been known to Monteverdi. The six verses are each treated differently, though the repetition of Su presto links three of them. As in Batto, qui, pianse, a sudden E major chord signals a change of mood. Listening to these martial pieces, one wonders, after the effect of the virtuoso performances has worn off, whether Monteverdi had discovered a musical technique of value. There were few imitators, and it led nowhere immediately. In fact, we have to jump a couple of centuries before we meet another composer who discovered (probably independently) that to express certain musical ideas and emotions, energy was more important than melody. But with the background of sonata form, Beethoven was able to give his chordal repetitions greater significance. While frequently Monteverdi’s harmonically static scales and arpeggios are a self-conscious metapher, when fully integrated into a masterpiece like Hor che ’1 ciel, they can move us in a way that no other composer can match. Clifford Bartlett
EMI Electrola "Reflexe"