Madrigaux à quatre voix

Description

Philippe Verdelot played a very important role in the development of the madrigal during the Italian Renaissance. Born in France, he likely moved to Italy at a young age. From 1522, he held the most important positions in church music in Florence - first he was maestro di capella at the baptistery of the Florence Cathedral, and a year later also at the cathedral itself. After 1530, with the riots surrounding the expulsion of the Medici family and the siege of the city, all biographical traces are lost, and no works created after these events seem to have survived. In the preceding years, however, Verdelot had initiated important musical developments with his madrigals, which at the time were the most published in Italy. The Ensemble Profeti della Quinta presents a selection of four-part madrigals from an anthology published posthumously (1540, 1565). A particularity of their performance is that each singer reads from the originally notated single voice - unlike a modern score with parts notated one above the other. The musicians must therefore listen to each other much more closely and be able to react spontaneously. This spontaneity is felt throughout the recording, and takes the listener back to the beginnings of the Italian madrigal in a very intense way.