Monteverdi’s Fourth Book of Madrigals has had some very distinguished recordings, as befits one of the most influential and controversial publications of its time. Some would have it that the Consort of Musick’s recordings have been superseded by the efforts of newer Italian ensembles, Rinaldo Alessandrini’s Concerto Italiano among them. While I would agree with the gist of that, Rooley’s Monteverdi, though it has aged, has done so very well, and can hardly be dismissed out of hand.

This new recordings occupies a position midway between Rooley and Alessandrini, in that La Venexiana concentrate on the ‘line’ (let us say) or span of individual madrigals, where Alessandrini organises them into ‘sense units’ that combine to make up a whole. At the same time, Cavina’s singers (who incidentally, are largely identical with Alessandrini’s cast, but 10 years on) do more to enunciate and illustrate the words than Rooley’s; and so the more fruitful comparison is probably with Concerto Italiano.

In Gesualdo, Cavina’s focus on the architecture reins in the disruption on the surface of the music very effectively, whereas Alessandrini’s approach runs the risk of atomising the musical argument. In Monteverdi, however, I find Alessandrini’s approach far better suited. Even in the first two madrigals of the book, his focus on those ‘sense units’ brings out Monteverdi’s near-miraculous feeling for rhetoric (to say nothing of his psychological acuity) in a way that La Venexiana’s readings, for all their elegance, cannot match. With Monteverdi the ‘purely musical’ argument (if one can make such a distinction) must be sieved through the implications of the text in order to come fully to life.

From a technical standpoint, too, I’d give Concerto Italiano the edge. They render the bloom of a chord, the poignancy of a dissonance more startlingly than La Venexiana, who are caught out with intonational problems at crucial points (the unison on which the book opens, or the second instance of the word ‘desio’ in Anima mia, perdona). In addition, Alessandrini coaxes more ‘bite’, more impetus out of the words: a phrase like ‘tutto foco e tutto sangue’ (‘all fire and all blood’ in Luci serene e chiare) hits you like a slap, and spurs the music on. Still, there is great elegance to these new readings – try Volgea l’anima mia – and those who find Alessandrini’s approach over the top may well prefer Cavina.