The first recording of major vocal ensemble works by Gavin Bryars features music from his ongoing madrigals project, working within the spirit and aesthetic of those from the Italian Renaissance. On this recording – Madrigals Volume 1 – for Bryars’ own label, the Second Book of Madrigals and a couple of other pieces are performed by the stunning Italian early music ensemble Vox Àltera. Its title - Al suon dell'acque scriva ("Let him write to the sound of the waters") - comes from the seventh madrigal of the series.
By coincidence the first four settings of madrigals that Gavin Bryars composed (in 1998 for The Hilliard Ensemble) were written on Mondays and he took the decision to write the remaining nine on Mondays too. This strategy clearly committed him to writing at least seven books of madrigals… The Second Book (Tuesdays) is for a 6-part group and sets Petrarch sonnets in the original 14th century Italian, sonnets from the Rime Sparsi (“scattered verses”), many of which have Laura as their implied subject. “In setting these I have been staggered by the richness of Petrarch’s invention, both in the range and choice of imagery and in the extraordinarily subtle poetic devices and techniques that he employs,” says Bryars. There are 14 madrigals for this book and an extra one (“Marconi’s Madrigal”), written for the centenary of the first transmission of a radio signal - a single letter - across the Atlantic Ocean. Petrarch continues to be a source of inspiration for Bryars' vocal music and the album concludes with the first madrigal from the Fourth Book (Thursday), which consists of 8-part settings of longer poems, commissioned for Vox Àltera. The Fifth and Sixth Books are under way….
