What a pleasure it is to welcome these recordings of Monteverdi madrigals. One is a high-profile production with an international cast; the other is a modest affair, with no big names. Both are quite outstanding.

The big surprise is the casting of Rolando Villazón as the narrator in the Combattimento. This is the piece in which Monteverdi introduced the stile concitato, with onomatopoeic effects to represent the fighting. The burden falls on the narrator, and Villazón shoulders it with relish. Celebrated in Verdi and Massenet, he brings a heroic vigour to the “agitated” passages; while the brief reference to the night obscuring mighty deeds finds him scaling his voice down. It may be that future generations will treat this approach with the superior disdain with which the fastidious listener of today might view, say, Gigli and Handel’s Largo: the more fools they, if so.

Villazón is equally urgent in the melismas of “Ecco di dolci raggi”, and there is a beguiling lilt to “Si dolce è’l tormento”. In the duets, he and Topi Lehtipuu don’t quite convey the introspection at the start of “Interrotte speranze” but the kisses of “Tornate, o cari baci” are winningly done. Lehtipuu builds up the strophic variations of “Tempro la cetra” magnificently, and he is even more engaging in the “tuneful little ditty” (Tim Carter’s phrase in the booklet-note), “Maledetto sia l’aspetto”.

Patrizia Ciofi, Clorinda in the Combattimento, has less to do. She catches the light and shade of “Quel sguardo sdegnosetto” nicely but her squeals in “Ohimè ch’io cado” might pall after a few hearings. Le Concert d’Astreé and Emmanuelle Haïm give admirable support.

The pitch on the Combattimento disc is about a semitone higher than today’sstandard. I Fagiolini prefer “normal” pitch except for “Se pur destina”, which is transposed down a tone. Well as the bass-baritone Giles Underwood sings, it seems a bit unfair on the tenors. Nicholas Mulroy is nearly the equal of Lehtipuu in “Tempro la cetra”, the only piece common to both discs, and he is well matched by Nicholas Hurndall Smith in the first of Monteverdi’s continuo madrigals, “Ahi, come a un vago sol”. There are a cappella madrigals, too, which the group sing in excellent style. Of the later pieces, the highlight is “Con che soavità” for soprano and three instrumental groups. All the spatial effects of St Mark’s are here, albeit in a secular context. Do not miss this wide-ranging survey on any account.