English and Italian Renaissance Madrigals
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CD Details
Composer: Jacques ArcadeltComposer: Vincenzo Bellavere
Composer: John [Composer] Bennet
Composer: Antonio Caprioli
Composer: Maddalena Casulana
Composer: Loyset Compere
Composer: Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi
Composer: Orlando Gibbons
Composer: Orlande de Lassus
Composer: Luca Marenzio
Composer: Thomas Morley
Composer: Giovanni Domenico del Giovane da Nola
Composer: Francesco Patavino
Composer: Cipriano de Rore
Composer: Thomas Tomkins
Composer: Thomas Vautor
Composer: Philippe Verdelot
Composer: John Ward
Composer: Thomas Weelkes
Composer: John Wilbye
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2000-04-11
Music Label: EMI Classics
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
- Cantiam lieti cantiamo
- E d'un bel matin d'amore
- Quella bella e biancha mano
- Una leggiadra nimpha
- Venite amanti insieme
- Divini occhi sereni, madrigal for 4 voices (also for voice & lute, arranged by Willaert)
- Con l'angelico riso, madrigal for 4 voices (also for voice & lute, arranged by Willaert)
- Madonna il tuo bel viso, madrigal for 4 voices (also for voice & lute, arranged by Willaert)
- Fuggi, fuggi, cor mio, madrigal for 4 voices (also for voice & lute, arranged by Willaert)
- Si lieta e grata morte, madrigal for 4 voices (also for voice & lute, arranged by Willaert)
- Se la dura durezza in la mia donna, madrigal for 4 voices, S. 2/52
- Ahime, dov' ?'l bel viso, madrigal for 4 voices, S. 2/1
- Madonna, s'io v'offendo, madrigal for 4 voices, S. 2/31
- Il bianco e dolce cigno, madrigal for 4 voices, S. 2/18
- Donne, ven?te al ballo
- Morir non pu? il mio cuore
- Se la mia vita da l'aspro tormento, madrigal for 4 voices (Il primo libro de madrigali a 4-6 voci)
- Mia benigna fortuna
- Anchor che col partire, madrigal
- O sonno, madrigal
- Chi la Gagliarda
- Madonna mia famme bon'offerta, canzona for 4 voices
- Medici noi siamo
- Quandro sar? mai quel zorno
- Matona mia cara, villanelle for 4 voices, S. x/93
- Tri ciechi siamo
- O griefe, even on the bud, madrigal for 5 voices
- When, loe, by breake of morning, madrigal for 2 voices
- Aprill is in my mistris face, madrigal for 4 voices
- Thule the period of cosmographie, madrigal in 2 sections for 6 voices: The first part
- Thule the period of cosmographie, madrigal in 2 sections for 6 voices: The second part
- Sweet nimphe, come to thy lover, madrigal for 2 voices
- Sweet Hony Sucking Bees, madrigal: The first part
- Sweet Hony Sucking Bees, madrigal: The second part
- Miraculous love's wounding, madrigal for 2 voices
- Adieu, sweet Amaryllis, madrigal (No. 12, The First Set of English Madrigals)
- Weep, O mine Eyes (from Madrigals to four voyces)
- The silver swanne, madrigal for 5 voices
- O care wilt thou dispatch mee, madrigal in 2 sections for 5 voices: The first part
- O care wilt thou dispatch mee, madrigal in 2 sections for 5 voices: The second part
- Since Robin Hood, madrigal for 3 voices
- Fyre and lightning from heaven, madrigal for 2 voices
- Strike it up tabor, madrigal for 3 voices
- See, See the Shepheards' Queene for 5 voices (madrigal)
- Come, Sable Night
- Sweet Suffolke Owle
- In nets of goulden wyers, madrigals for 2 voices
- Draw On, Sweet Night, Best Friend unto Those Cares, madrigal
Music reviews of English and Italian Renaissance Madrigals
Music Review: Happy Happy Singers We!
Rating: 5 Stars
"Then broadside to broadside and at it they went, for fully two hours or three," the good ships Madrigal and Madrigale, head to head the English and the Italian, nor would either yield until the last quaver...
It's not a fair battle of course, a handful of English composers against the whole continent. Of the composers of these "Italian" madrigals, only six are bona fide Italiani. Compere, Verdelot, Arcadelt, da Rore, Willaert, Bell'Haver, and di Lasso are all French or Flemish. Likewise, the majority of these Italian "madrigals" aren't madrigals at all in their contemporary sense; they are villanelle or canzonette, the light-hearted less polyphonic little sisters of the mature madrigali.
The two CDs in this box were recorded four years apart. The Italian CD features only the male voices listed in the notes, with countertenor David James singing treble, The English CD includes sopranos Lynne Dawson and Gillian Fisher; I hate to concede it but the mixed ensemble has a more pleasing blend of voices, and the English madrigals profit from it. However, the French and Italian composers included here have a much larger battery of harmonic and rhythmic resources. If the "big guns" of the true Italian madrigalists - Luzzaschi, Gesualdo, Monteverdi, Palestrina, d'India - were included the English barques would be sunk in a trice.
The English madrigalists tended to write jolly jouncy fa-la-la ditties, with the exception on this disk of the ambitious "O Care Thou Wilt Dispatch Me" by Thomas Weelkes. Jolly music is not to be scorned; there's a good deal of art and wit in these seemingly innocent pieces. John Wilbye's "Sweet Honey Sucking Bees" is one of the slyest metaphors of amorous climax in all of music, and the Hilliards make that climactic metaphor lushly obvious.
The Parisian composers Verdelot and Arcadelt were major innovators in the genre of the "chanson" and their Italian-language madrigals manage to sound quite French. Judging by these two CDs, the English composers learned more of their musical vocabulary from the French than from the Italians. Several of the Italian selections are properly "carnival" music, particularly those by the Neapolitan Giovan Domenico da Nola. Such pieces are often comedic, in the spirit of puppet-show commedia dell'arte. The well-known "Matona Mia Cara" by Orlando di Lasso is a hilarious mockery of the accent and manner of a German mercenary trying to serenade an Italian 'Madonna.'
This is music for frolics and flirtations, sweet honey sucking moments, patio parties and wedding receptions in modern terms. The Hilliards do it very well. Another reviewer declares querulously that the Ensemble Giles Binchois does it better; that may be so, but this 2-CD package is a unique selection.
I do have one grave complaint, for which many buyers might want to deduct a star from my rating. There are no texts! Listening veeery closely, you may be able to follow the English, but the Italian is difficult even for paesani, since much of it is dialect humor. It's nice to have these bargain-price re-releases from Virgin Veritas, but not to include texts with a selection of witty songs like these is miserly.
General CDs
- Styles > Classical
- Chamber Music > General
- Featured Composers, A-Z > ( G ) > Gibbons, Orlando
- ( L ) > Lassus, Orlando di(Lasso) > All Works by Lassus
- ( M ) > Marenzio, Luca
- Featured Performers, A-Z > ( H ) > Hilliard Ensemble
- Historical Periods > Baroque (c.1600-1750) > General
- Renaissance (c.1450-1600) > Ballets & Dances
- Opera & Vocal > General
- Vocal Non-Opera > Songs & Lieder > Madrigals
- Miscellaneous > General
- Pop > Vocal Pop > General
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