CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI Terzo Libro dei Madrigali
La VenexianaClaudio Cavina
GCD 920923
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Performing artists
La Venexiana Claudio Cavina, director
Production details
Playing time: 62'35Recorded in Corsica (Auditorium di Pigna) in September 2001Engineered by Davide FiccoProduced by Sigrid Lee & La VenexianaExecutive producer: Carlos CésterArt direction: Valentín Iglesias (00:03:00)Booklet essay: Stefano RussomannoEnglish Français Deutsch Español Italiano
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CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI (1567-1643)
Terzo Libro dei Madrigali, 1592
La giovinetta piantaO come è gran martireSovra tenere erbetteO dolce anima mia Stracciami pur il core O rossignuol Se per stremo ardore Vattene pur crudel O primaveraPerfidissimo volto Ch’io non t’ami cor mio Occhi un tempo mia vita Vivrò fra i miei tormenti Lumi miei cari Rimanti in pace
About this CD
The dedication of the Terzo Libro di Madrigali a cinque voci, published in Venice in 1592 by Ricciardo Amadino, represents the first documentary evidence that we have of Monteverdi’s stay in Mantua, where the composer had been working since 1590 as an instrumentalist playing the viola at the court of Vincenzo Gonzaga. Being connected to one of the era’s most flourishing and active cultural centres could not but exert a profound influence on the composer’s stylistic and aesthetic principles. Indeed, this new collection from Monteverdi appears in many ways to reflect the ambience alive in Mantua. Two names stand out in the selection of literary texts employed by Monteverdi: Giovanni Battista Guarini and Torquato Tasso, both poets at the Ferrara court who nevertheless maintained close ties with Mantua. But it is in the change of expressive registers above all where the most significant innovations are to be best appreciated... The Third Book of Madrigals stands as a landmark in the Monteverdian exploration of the internal life of the word, which the music picks up and amplifies with renewed sensitivity and force. On the other hand, the contrapuntal fullness of episodes such as found at the start of Se per estremo ardore prompts us to see in this collection also the culmination of a certain “classicism”, a brilliant and final affirmation of the possibilities of the prima prattica. This miraculous balance between tradition and innovation perhaps may be the reason for the extraordinary success of the publication. Five reprintings in less than two decades bear witness to the recognition which the composer’s own contemporaries rendered to the exceptional nature of the Third Book.
“I really do not think that there is one composer who can be rightly compared to this genius.”
In completing their masterful Monteverdi Edition, Claudio Cavina and La Venexiana have returned to the beginning – to the Madrigali a cinque voci… Libro primo – of Monteverdi’s exploration of the madrigalian art form, a journey which was to occupy the composer for more than 50 years of his life across his staying in the cities of Cremona, Mantua and Venice. In this First Book, published in 1587 when the composer was barely 20 years old yet demonstrably showing clear evidence of his approaching maturity, La Venexiana’s performances are again faithful to Monteverdi’s passion for the written word – above all to the weight theme of love. In this final release in the Monteverdi Edition Cavina adds a twist in the tail by including on this new CD the madrigals from the posthumous Libro Nono put together by the composer’s Venetian publisher. With the rerelease of La Venexiana’s recording of Il Terzo Libro (complete with a new essay penned by Stefano Russomanno), eight volumes now comprise Glossa’s Monteverdi Edition, all available within the attractively and imaginatively unified design style which has become the hallmark of the label. [read more...]