Monteverdi: Tutti I Madrigali

The further Rinaldo Alessandrini advanced in his demanding and exhaustive quest, the more he discovered and mastered the inexhaustible richness of a musical art intimately linked to the theatre and the emotions. “A theatre”, he says, “made of humanity, of aspiring to the sublime and the joyful resolution of life’s sorrows through love, the curative power of song and the energetic exaltation of dance.” Today, the Italian conductor and harps chordist is one of the undisputed masters of this exceptional vocal heritage, the best-loved of which is the famous book VIII devoted to madrigals of love and war, with the Combattimento de Tancredi e Clorinda, the Lamento de la ninfa and Hor che ’l ciel et la terra, book VI with its Lamento d’Arianna and Zefiro torna, voted Editor’s Choice by Gramophone, and book II, winner of a Gram phone Award. All the subtlety of the intimate intermingling of text and music unfolds, in ever renewed variety. Each recording has also contributed to the methodical, f