Giaches de Wert, Nono libro de madrigali

Description

One of the masters of the Italian madrigal The new recording project by La Compagnia del Madrigale is devoted to Giaches de Wert’s Ninth Book of Madrigals (1588). Wert, Flemish by birth but active for most of his life in Italy at the Gonzaga court in Mantua, embodies the figure of the great composer capable of transcending fashion to create an art which, as was said in the 16th century, is meant to remain “durable and eternal.” The Ninth Book, published during a period of personal tribulation and heartbreak for the poet Tarquinia Molza, marks the peak of artifice and pathos. Here Wert explores the heights of Petrarch’s Canzoniere, alongside verses by Torquato Tasso, Jacopo Sannazaro and Battista Guarini, alternating luminous courtly tributes with innovative lyricism that foreshadows the style of Carlo Gesualdo. La Compagnia del Madrigale, a world-renowned ensemble in the performance of Monteverdi, Marenzio, Gesualdo and Rore, performs these pages with absolute artistic excellence.