These dozen pieces for voices and instruments all come from the eleventh published book of music, the Concerto terzo delle musiche da camera, by the Brescian composer Biagio Marini, then working in Milan. Born a generation later than Monteverdi, Marini actually worked under the direction of the older master during a spell as a violinist at St Mark's, Venice during the 1610s, and the Monteverdian influence is strongly evident in much that he wrote. Perhaps deservedly it is for his instrumental pieces that he is best known, but there is little enough of any of his music currently available, and on those terms alone this initiative is to be warmly welcomed.
All 12 works are continuo madrigals, and exploit the resources of the fully-developed concertato style. Interestingly, they demonstrate a wide variety of approaches, from lighter pieces in the canzonetta style to fully worked-up larger scale compositions such as ''Languir per un bel volto'' and ''Amanti che faremo'', though Marini is more at home in the more epigrammatic and dance-like styles. The Consort of Musicke are no strangers to Italian music of this period, and these performances are characterized by their familiar strengths and weaknesses; while there is rarely any doubt about their technical control, I did sometimes feel their responses to be mechanistic and that drama and conviction are missing. Occasionally, as in the opening madrigal, ''Gite sospiri miei, gite alla guerra'', a piece which uses if not overuses the concitato genere advocated by Monteverdi in the preface to his own Eighth Book, the fault may not be entirely that of the performers; the concitato genere is limited at best, and their failure to achieve a satisfactorily emphatic conclusion must in part be laid at Marini's door. Nevertheless, in the end it should be stressed that there is much of interest in these pieces, and The Consort must be complimented for once again enlarging our view of contemporary styles and, in this case, of the enormous influence of Monteverdi himself.'