Marenzio's Nono Libro di Madrigali is without doubt one of the great undiscovered treasures of the Italian madrigal repertory. The last collection to be published during his lifetime (the composer signed the dedication just three-and-a-half months before his premature death), it is filled with pieces that are closer in language to the mature Gesualdo than to the pastoral lyricism usually associated with his name. Strange chordal juxtapositions, unusual dissonances and strings of suspensions are here the norm in a sequence of madrigals that mostly explore the themes of abandonment and melancholy. At their most extrovert they far surpass in audacity anything in Gesualdo itself; one wonders why Artusi, in his famous polemic against 'incorrect' dissonance treatment, did not line up some of the Nono Libro rather than Monteverdi's comparatively tame Cruda Amarilli.
This is music written for performance before an elite audience by virtuoso singers. The members of La Venexiana are no strangers to the late madrigal repertory; some of them started with Rinaldo Alessandrini's Concerto Italiano, and the group's recording of Monteverdi last year on this label deservedly received a good press. Its understanding of the complexities of the rather terse style of the Nono Libro is admirable. The architecture of individual phrases is beautifully shaped and finished, and the structure of the whole finely paced. Overall tone is firm and intense, and the ensemble nicely voiced. It is a delight to escape from crudely melodramatic interpretations in which opposing words or ideas are matched to rather mannered dynamic contrasts; here there is something far more subtle and intelligent. Marenzio's Nono Libro is not easy music, but it could hardly have had more powerful advocacy.
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