Our view of Marenzio’s music is curiously distorted by its relationship to the English madrigal. Thomas Morley‚ the composer‚ writer about music and entrepreneur‚ who together with Nicholas Yonge substantially shaped English bourgeois taste for this new style of domestic song‚ drew considerably upon Marenzio’s early madrigals‚ which Morley praised for their ‘good ayre and fine invention’. Their Italian contemporaries‚ or at least the more sophisticated of them‚ would have been more aware of the later madrigal books‚ which are filled with pieces that are more difficult to both sing and appreciate. These stylistic changes in Marenzio’s later works are accompanied by a shift in literary taste‚ away from the pastoral lyrics that dominate the earlier collections towards poetry that is more reflective and intimate. La Venexiana have already successfully explored the world of Marenzio’s late madrigals with their quite stunning recording of the Ninth Book (1/00)‚ the last to be published during the composer’s lifetime‚ and full of music that is far from easy to interpret persuasively. The overall style of the Sixth Book is quite different; the most important trend here is towards a declamatory style which which critically depends upon a new kind of rhetoric. As the earlier recording also demonstrates‚ the group is superbly equipped to elucidate the details of intimate music­text relations without resorting to over­mannered gestures. The overall tone of the Sixth Book is pastoral­elegiac‚ and the group responds with a sense of pacing that is gentle and spacious‚ allowing the music plenty of opportunity to speak clearly. Accurate tuning and carefully balanced chording‚ backed up by exquisite phrasing‚ are the keys to La Venexiana’s delicate interpretations of some of the most poetic music written by one of the most important Italian madrigalists before Monteverdi. This is a must.