“Never before had anyone heard the euphony of a single voice to a stringed instrument…which had so much power to move the affect of the soul.” Thus Giulio Caccini, not entirely accurately perhaps, in the preface to Le nuove musiche. Yet despite the distortions of self-promotion, there can be no doubt that Caccini’s songbook, published in Florence in 1602, set the pace in both tone and stylefor the fashion for solo songs with accompaniments which came to dominate Italian repertories of domestic music in the first half of the 17th century, eventually replacing the polyphonic madrigal. It is the powerful bonding of words and music to create a dramatic rhetorical medium that is the hallmark of the new style, not only in Caccini’s music but also in the more dissonant and harmonically adventurous manner of his near contemporary Sigismondo d’India.

Their songs make up the lion’s share here. Rosa Domínguez has an attractively light and lyrical voice, warm in the middle register and bright in the upper one. Her phrasing is sensitive and improvised ornamentation in an appropriate style has been discreetly and thoughtfully added. Her singing is delicately supported by a variety of instruments, including both Renaissance guitars, archlute and theorbo, in constantly different combinations; here too the imaginative introduction of extra passagework fills the gaps in the vocal line to produce a seamless forward flow. The intrusion of the dark tones of the Baroque organ in the first of three pieces by d’India which constitute the emotional centre of the disc heralds a shift of mood away from the languorous love lyrics of Caccini’s world, and the record finishes with a sprightly and virtuoso account of Benedetto Ferrari’s Amanti io vi so dire. Altogether a delightful advocacy for some forgotten masterpieces.