CIPRIANO DE RORE (1515/16-1565)
Vieni, dolce Imeneo
Madrigali

1 Dalle belle contrade d’oriente
2 Candido e vago fiore
3 Mentre lumi maggior
4 Un altra volta la Germania strida
5 Poi che mi invita Amore
6 Non è lasso martire
7 Alcun non puo saper
8 Sebben il duol
9 Alma Susanna
10 O sonno
11 Di virtù, di costumi
12 Tra più beati e più sublimi cori
13 Convien ch’ovunque sia
14 Vieni, dolce Imeneo
15 Mia benigna fortuna
16 Volgi ’l tuo corso
17 Come la notte
18 L’alto signor
19 O morte, eterno fin

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About this album

With Vieni, dolce Imeneo, La Compagnia del Madrigale make another important halt on their compelling journey across the territory of Italian secular song with a disc devoted to one of the most significant, yet these days somewhat bypassed, composers: Cipriano de Rore. De Rore was a Fleming who enjoyed great success notably in the Italian courts of Ferrara and Parma – but with a prestige which extended up and across Europe. He composed in many genres, but it is the secular madrigal – recorded here – where his skill was most valued, for example in creating extended and expressive melodic lines coupled with innovatory pre-echoes of the seconda pratica so triumphantly expressed – albeit amidst great criticism – by Claudio Monteverdi.

Recordings – all also on Glossa – of madrigals by Marenzio, Gesualdo and Monteverdi have already demonstrated musical pleasures such as an uncommon vocal blend and delicacy, and a meticulous dynamic control exhibited by the richly experienced members of La Compagnia del Madrigale, and those delights are to be experienced with these 19 madrigals by Cipriano de Rore, composed late in his career.

With texts by Petrarch, Ariosto and assorted court poets for these madrigals, essay-writer Marco Bizzarini highlights one of the principal characteristic features of de Rore’s mastery when he points to the disc’s title track, Vieni, dolce Imeneo: the ideal union between poetry and music.