The emotional conflict between lovers is the dominant theme of Monteverdi’s Fifth Book of Madrigals, a theme which the composer explores through an atmospherically related sequence of pieces, many on texts taken from Guarini’s pastoral epic Il pastor fido. Guarini, a well-known figure at the Gonzaga court in Mantua where Monteverdi was then employed, had written this piece over a long period, but it was only in 1602 that a definitive edition was finally published. In this sense there is a modernity about Monteverdi’s poetic choices in the Fifth Book which is in turn reflected in an adventurous harmonic and gestural language which pushes the madrigalian vocabulary of Giaches de Wert and Luca Marenzio to new boundaries.
As always with Monteverdi, his main preoccupation here is with an intimate bonding of words and music in a way which goes beyond the illustrative and pictorial manoeuvres of traditional madrigalian styles. This aesthetic priority, which remained with the composer throughout his life, is one which Rinaldo Alessandrini and the Concerto Italiano have done so much to understand and reveal, above all in a series of highly acclaimed, Gramophone Award-winning recordings (7/93, 12/93 and 8/95) that have transformed our perceptions of both the sound and the sense of Monteverdi’s music. Enthusiasts for the Concerto’s highly dramatic, yet sensitive and subtle approach, the rich fruit of a winning combination of a true understanding of the textual complexities of Guarini’s verse allied to a high order of technical control, will not be disappointed by this new disc. The opening diptych, “Cruda Amarilli/O Mirtillo”, sets the tone and style for much of what follows; the pace is stately, the passion being generated by those extraordinary dissonances that so offended Artusi, delineated here with a lingering attention that is truly spine-chilling while still retaining its erotic undertow. Here and elsewhere on this recording, the exactness of the voicing, the gentle underscoring of rhythm and meaning, the authentic sound of the Italian language and the sheer musicality of the final result – all these familiar trademarks of the Concerto’s craft – are united in performances of great expressive power and integrity.'