CARLO GESUALDO DA VENOSA(1566-1613)
Sesto Libro di Madrigali, 1611

1 Se la mia morte brami
2 Beltà, poi che t’assenti
3 Tu piangi, o Filli mia
4 Resta di darmi noia
5 Chiaro risplender suole
6 Io parto, e non più dissi
7 Mille volte il dì moro
8 O dolce mio tesoro
9 Deh, come invan sospiro
10 Io pur respiro in così gran dolore
11 Alme d’Amor rubelle
12 Candido e verde fiore
13 Ardita Zanzaretta
14 Ardo per te, mio bene
15 Ancide sol la morte
16 Quel «no» crudel
17 Moro, lasso, al mio duolo
18 Volan quasi farfalle
19 Al mio gioir il ciel si fa sereno
20 Tu segui, o bella Clori
21 Ancor che per amarti
22 Già piansi nel dolore
23 Quando ridente e bella

—

About this CD

To sense the emotional charge coursing through Carlo Gesualdo at the time when he was composing his Sixth Book of Madrigals, there is no better starting point than a thrilling new recording being issued on Glossa from La Compagnia del Madrigale. Some of the finest singers in the madrigal repertoire today – including Giuseppe Maletto, Daniele Carnovich and Rossana Bertini, and they have been refining their a cappella artistry over more than twenty years with groups such as La Venexiana and Concerto Italiano – now restore humanness, warmth, pictorial beauty and richness to one of the most complex cycles in all music. This marks the group’s triumphant entry onto a label which has always made the exploration of the Italian madrigal repertory one of its cornerstones.

Allied to the ensemble’s musical reading is a reevaluation of the essence of the madrigalism of Gesualdo (the Prince of Venosa) by Marco Bizzarini in an absorbing accompanying essay, which draws upon many reactions to the music made during the composer’s own lifetime. Bizzarini highlights the extraordinary beauty, the intense expression of the sentiments and the mastery of counterpoint in Gesualdo’s “23 canapés of caviar” (as Stravinsky termed them).

This new interpretation – and its wealth of nuances – offered by La Compagnia del Madrigale majestically surmounts all the dissonances and difficulties in these madrigals to lay bare the expressive intensity of the music. Graced by an attractive cover design, wholly in keeping with standards of the house, this new recording of Gesualdo’s Sixth Book is a joy to behold and read, as well as to listen to.