This is the third release in The Consort of Musicke's survey of composers who explored the refined courtly aesthetic adopted and propelled so boldly into the seventeenth century by Monteverdi. The first three discs of ''The Monteverdi Circle'' have in fact appeared concurrently, flagging The Consort's launch of their own label, Musica Oscura. I have been working through them chronologically from Rore to Monteverdi via Marenzio (all 1/94), deriving much pleasure but none the less hoping that the trend of releasing three or more at a time will soon stop: devotees of this rarefied fare need time for each ''miniature scena'', as Anthony Rooley aptly calls these madrigals, to sink in and mature. The special nature of The Consort's excavation of riches from the last years of the sixteenth century should not be compromised through saturation. Whilst I had misgivings about some of the performances on the Rore disc, the Marenzio is a marvellous compilation of a first-rate composer who combines instant appeal and learned artifice to brilliant effect.
''Madrigali erotici e spirituali'' is not merely a re-run of The Consort's initial foray into Monteverdi's madrigals for L'Oiseau-Lyre in 1981 (reissued on CD, 5/89). That disc concentrated entirely on the ''erotici''. Here we have the added dimension of music set originally to secular texts with the sexual undertones unashamedly transformed for devotional ends, a process typical of the unpredictable and paradoxical nature of the age. These 'sacred contrafacta' certainly give this disc an unusual slant on well-worked masterpieces, a conception which alone deserves much praise. Yet more striking still is the way the singers create subtle and highly satisfying contrasts between the bona fide madrigals and their spiritual counterparts. The Consort are notoriously deft at textural variation, a prime means of expression in this highly charged music, and in this context a particularly effective device to offset the more sober recastings from their steamy originals. Examples like Longe, mi Jesu, a contrafactum on Parlo miser'o taccio? from the Fourth Book receives a type of control and sustenance to impart softer and less self-indulgent sensibilities.
Many of the other madrigals have been revisited like a Lieder singer returning to Winterreise: The Consort must view the Fourth Book as their artistic Alma Mater by now (this publication figures most prominently as the model for devotional settings) but who could argue with that? Monteverdi of this quality will doubtless become a constant reference throughout the group's career. Their performances of the madrigali erotici are more overtly impassioned than I have heard before (see how Sfogava con le stelle has matured since their L'Oiseau-Lyre recording from 1986) and apart from preferring the no-holds-barred approach, the conflicting but cohesive nature of the project is heightened as a result of astute stylistic pointing in both the sacred and secular settings. The 'spiritualizing' of the Lamento d'Arianna from the Sixth Book is a plausible and highly imaginative idea of Emma Kirkby's, inspired by Monteverdi's own asperging of his famous solo lament of 1607. This adaptation is one of many effective mutations in a thoroughly ingenious recital.'