Monteverdi: Madrigali Volume 1 - 3: Cremona / Mantova / Venezia
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CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI
Monteverdi: Madrigali Volume 1 - 3: Cremona / Mantova / Venezia
Les Arts Florissants, Paul Agnew
[ Les Arts Florissants Editions / 3 CD Box Set ]
Release Date: Monday 20 November 2017
This item is currently out of stock. It may take 6 or more weeks to obtain from when you place your order as this is a specialist product.
A revolution of the senses!
A noble genre inherited from the Renaissance, the madrigal became with Monteverdi a veritable experimental laboratory. It accompanied the composer throughout his long life, as is demonstrated by this three-disc anthology of his finest madrigali. From Cremona to Venice by way of Mantua, Paul Agnew and Les Arts Florissants invite us to relive with them this major revolution in musical thought, the heir to a lofty humanism, which found its natural culmination in the nascent Baroque movement of the early seventeenth century
"Cremona dips into Books 1-3 to show a ballsy young composer flexing his muscles, breathlessly setting love poems and brimming with clever tricks. Les Arts capture all the exuberant invention. Their delivery is fresh and colloquial, like animated conversation between friends. The vocal blend isn't smooth - the character of each singer shines through, and the result is all the more colourful for it." (Guardian on Cremona)
"If a keen sense of the interpretative moment is the hallmark of ensemble performance at its best, then this new Monteverdi instalment from Les Arts Florissants deserves to be held up as such...One is torn between regret that there is to be only one further volume, and anticipation at what it might bring." (Gramophone Award WINNER 2016 - Baroque Vocal on Cremona)
"Agnew's selection is impeccably judged...Les Arts Florissants have not so rich a sound as their Italian counterparts but the lighter timbre makes for a texture of rare transparency, an elfin capacity to render changes that can be properly breathtaking...And if you don't know a single volume this should be enough to persuade you that you ought to have done, long ago." (Gramophone Disc of the Month Jan 2015 on Mantova)
"The vivid atmosphere of Agnew's performance is palpable and, as so often in these discs, his text-driven subtlety wins over." Gramophone Award Nomination 2017 - Baroque Vocal on Venezia
