Monteverdi's eight books of madrigals, published at intervals during a long composing career, have received something of an uneven press. Ever since the days of Raymond Leppard and the Glyndebourne Opera Chorus (their recording of the Eighth Book has been reissued on Philips, 8/92), it has been the mature madrigals that have received the most attention from performers and record companies alike. Now things have started to change. In addition to the wide choice of pieces, from the Seventh and Eighth books currently available, there are also two complete versions of the Sixth Book, and one each of Books Four and Five.
To these can now be added the first complete recordings of the Second and Third Books, pieces which were written during the crucial time when Monteverdi left his native Cremona for the more glittering circumstances of the Gonzaga Court at Mantua, and which often register that change in interesting ways. As might be expected, the earlier madrigals reflect the amateur audience for which they were written, and are for the most part rather conventional settings. Sadness calls for gentle pathos, with perhaps some mild dissonance; happiness is conveyed by memorable easily sung rhythms and bright colours. This is music neither difficult to perform, nor very difficult to listen to, and The Consort of Musicke catch the gently elegaic mood that characterizes the book as a whole with great delicacy. The opening setting is something of a synthesis of the complete collection, and indeed of the strengths of the consorts approach; the characteristic twist at the end of Tasso's erotic love-death text nicely underscored with a slight relaxation in tempo, the seductive responses of the lover at the start of the second part effectively caressed in to life by the three well-harmonised lower voices. This is precisely the kind of text that Monteverdi was increasingly drawn to in these years, and the most ear-catching example of all Tasso's Ecco mormora l'onde is almost an anthology of madrigalian images each of which provokes a distinct musical response: birdsong, the murmuring of the waves, the breaking dawn which ''turns the chilly dew to pearl and the high hills to gold'' in an intense and concentrated interpretation which has the effect of distinguishing the piece from some of the lighter madrigals that surround it. The Consort successfully squeeze out each element of Tasso's paradisical landscape, while never losing sight of the overall shape of this miniature masterpiece and of its final point of arrival. This undoubtedly the finest thing on the record, gives a foretaste of their view of the Terzo libro, which is full of such pieces.
Here in the Third Book the more virtuosic character of the writing finds a lively and carefully-tailored set of responses in performances which beautifully demonstrate not only the extraordinary blatant power of Monteverdi's language, but also the entirely different audience for which he was now writing. This is a fine achievement for a group that have, more than any other, brought the less well-known aspects of the late madrigal repertory to a wider public.'