These two discs are packaged together in a slip-case emblazoned with
the name of the director, Rinaldo Alessandrini, as part of Naïve's
15th Anniversary celebration. They derive from two entirely different
recording sessions by mostly different musicians - despite the name
Concerto Italiano on both. One has to investigate the notes with each
to deduce that the idea is to celebrate the work of this group and
director in presenting music of the pre-baroque era so successfully
for many years. I stress that this is my deduction; it doesn't say
so anywhere.
The Monteverdi CD is performed with wondrous control and energy by
this expert group. The booklet has thorough notes and full English
and French translations of the Italian text. Anyone not possessing
this set of Monteverdi's music, some of it hair-raisingly inventive,
can safely invest in this one. My only proviso is that the closely-miked
recordings are a little lacking in space around the voices. The other
disc is a rather interesting oddity, obviously intended to supplement
the Monteverdi by giving a context . The string players provide a
sequence of instrumental music roughly in order of composition, from
the fifty or so years either side of the Sixth Book of Madrigals.
This illustrates the way instrumental works moved away from pure accompaniment
and took on a life of their own. So we start with Fantasies, Canzone
and Capriccios and move through to Sonatas, Ballet Suites and ultimately
to Sinfonias and Concertos. All the pieces are short and if heard
at a single sitting one can hear the change from music very like that
written for a consort of viols to suites of movements akin to the
concertos of Corelli and Vivaldi. Many of the composers are probably
unknown to most listeners, one is indeed anonymous. You will be as
pleasantly surprised as I was by Gasparo Zanetti's ballet music and
Dall'abaco's Concerto a Quattro. Nothing here rises to the heights
of Vivaldi, Corelli or even Albinoni but it does fill an aural gap
in one's appreciation of how we got from Monteverdi to Handel and
Bach.
A very small criticism of the recording: the harpsichord is not always
in tune with the strings and there are occasional sour chords as a
result. The recording is once again a bit close, but all is clean
and clear. Naïve have given no number on the slipcase for this
pair of discs so just the separate numbers are cited above.
Dave Billinge
Details
Claudio MONTEVERDI (1567-1643)
Il Sesto Libro de Madrigali (1614)
rec. Palazzo Farnese, Rome, Italy, December 2005
1600
Music for two violins, viola, cello, theorbo and continuo by Anonimo,
Bononcini, Castello, Dall'abaco, Frescobaldi, Gabrieli, Legrenzi,
de Macque, Marini, Merula, Salvatore, Torelli and Zanetti
rec. Pontifico Istituto di Musica Sacra, Rome, Italy, March 2011
