Madrigals

Description

Nothing in Martinu's catalog is secondary, nor indifferent for that matter. He infused his simple genius, his so impertinent language, his gesture where fantasy instantly spills into the tragic, including in the six booklets for small choir gathered on this record featuring the Martinu Voices of Lukas Vasilek. A lover of the frescoes of Piero della Francesca and the art of the madrigalists, Martinu was the only one in his generation to revisit the intricacies of the madrigal, conforming to it while feeling free, with that singular genius of making a home out of every shell. The delightful booklet from 1959 that opens the album, with its haunting solo soprano for "Nothing is Lost in This World," sets the tone of the text, fresh and profound, allusive yet embracing, a true manifestation of a genius that first culminated in the sacred: the Slavic modes, the classical psalmody stirred by popular impulses, the colors between fresco and stained glass, the melodies resolving the polyphony of the Four Songs on the Virgin Mary had established this luminous and allusive grammar as early as 1934, so perceptible throughout a record that it is impossible to categorize, a small album of pure treasures finally sung from the heart (Discophilia - Artalinna.com). (Jean-Charles Hoffelé)