Various composers

O Dolcezze Amarissime | Madrigali, Ricercari and Canzoni strumentali from 17th Century, Italy

Roberta Invernizzi | Accademia Strumentale Italiana | Alberto Rasi

Label: Fineline
Format: CD
Barcode: 0608917241921

Catalog number: FL 72419
Releasedate: 05-07-24

- Finally available a never before released recording of Alberto Rasi and Roberta Invernizzi recorded in 2012
- Madrigals composed at the turn of the 17th century for solo voice accompanied by a consort of viols.
- As usual in Rasi's always well-conceived discs, vocal pieces are interpsersed with instrumental ones making up for a thoroughly pleaing listening from start to end.

In the mid-16th century, counterpoint – now no longer the abstract and self-referential art of good voice leading – entered the orbit of musica poetica, the form of music in which the communicative element was emphasized: by the very imitation of the concept contained in the words, music now gained the power to lend a sensually perceivable soul to the resounding numbers, the rational component of the composition. Of course such poetically conceived music had to be vocal music; and the madrigal became the genre in which the perfect balance between ratio and sensus, between rationality and sensuality, could be struck.

Written and visual sources testify that the practice of combining vocal lines and instruments was common when performing polyphonic works. Long before the rise of accompanied monody, the practice of ‘concerted’ madrigals had translated the theoretic concept of musica poetica into practical performance formulas which did justice to the intelligibility of words and texts. The combination of a solo vocal line and accompaniment by a consort of viols seems ideal in order to render the text completely and intelligibly, while keeping the sound structure of polyphony intact at the same time.