Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi

Very little is known of the life and work of Simone Balsamino from Urbino; his activity, as far as we can tell, lasted but four years: from 1590 to 1596. His first publication was the volume of Novellette, a collection of six-voice madrigals dedicated to Francesco Maria II Della Rovere, which includes a spiritual madrigal and seventeen madrigals derived from Tasso’s Aminta. Balsamino’s style appears at the same time in keeping with the music of his day and experimental in his use of both monody and polyphony, which are employed in such a way as to give emphasis to declamation.

The program is completed by the articulated and complex Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda by Claudio Monteverdi, first staged in Venice’s Palazzo Mocenigo in 1624 and included in the 8th volume of Madrigali Guerrieri et Amorosi con alcuni opuscoli di genere rappresentativo, published in 1638. The works are interpreted by the Madrigalists of Radio Svizzera Italiana conducted by Diego Fasolis, who are specialists of this type of repertoire.

In some respects, Monteverdi’s Orfeo (1607) is to the history of Italian opera what Dante’s Divine Comedy is to the history of Italian literature: a masterpiece that stands at the very beginning of the journey. With Orfeo and the operas that followed it, Monteverdi had the substantial merit of immediately demonstrating the infinite possibilities of this new genre, which would leave an imprint on three centuries of European culture. In the present edition the French conductor Jean-Claude Malgoire is at the head of a cast of Baroque opera specialists.

In addition to the beautiful and famous Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, which sets to music stanzas from Torquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata, the present CD features various madrigals showing Monteverdi’s desire to move the listener and give music theatrical impact. Of particular interest is the Ballo del Monteverde, published in 1627 and reconstructed by Roberto Gini, here recorded for the first time.

Performers are specialists of early music.

The Vesperae de Confessore here recorded were performed at the first Val di Noto Festival ”Magie Barocche” In festo S. Augustini, Episcopi et Ecclesiae Doctoris Ad Vesperas. The project of liturgical reconstruction was made by Paola Besutti, Roberto Gini, Barco Gozzi and Antonino Marcellino.

All the choral and poly-choral pieces included in the above-mentioned onteverdi collections and destined for the liturgical office are offered for the first time on disc in order to restore at least some of them to their original function, rouping them together in vespers, which in practice reproduce the vespers De confessore dedicated to Saint Augustine, recently celebrated as part of the First Festival 'Baroque Magic'..