Monteverdi’s Sixth Book of Madrigals (1614) is significant for including both traditional polyphonic and stile nuove concerted madrigals. In his booklet-notes, Rinaldo Alessandrini points out that this is also a ‘book of partings’: many of the madrigals seem to have been written much earlier than the published date, at a time when Monteverdi suffered the loss of his wife Claudia and his live-in pupil, the singer Caterina Martinelli. All the texts deal with loss both temporary or permanent – although it’s touching to note that the final madrigal, Presso un fiume tranquillo, paints a lovers’ reconciliation possibly emblematic of a Heavenly reunion.

When discussing this repertoire it’s almost a cliché to say that Concerto Italiano’s approach is analytical, La Venexiana’s more broadly coalescent. However, this new recording really goes far beyond the supple elegance of line for which La Venexiana are famous, with Alessandrini and his crew employing a tense, edgy rhetoric to reveal an inner psychology while sacrificing neither precision of ensemble nor beauty of sound. Concerto Italiano are now such a sensitive instrument that they respond to the emotional exigencies of the texts like silk to the breeze. Listen to the passionate terza parte of the Lamento d’Arianna; or the final line of Zefiro torna, where the drawn-out dissonances are almost physically painful; or the incredible dynamic and rhythmic control in the Sestina; or the fluid, frighteningly accurate ornamentation in Qui rise, o Tirsi. I could find a hundred such examples without ever conveying the many excellences of this recording.