Discography
Pianto della Madonna
[Harmonia Mundi]
Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)
María Cristina Kiehr, soprano
CONCERTO SOAVE
Alessandro Ciccolini, Patrizio Focardi, violins
Sylvie Moquet, viola da gamba
Mara Galassi, harp
Matthias Spaeter, archlute
Jean-Marc Aymes, organ
Venetian splendour.
Most of Monteverdi's motets for one voice were among his late publications, like the celebrated Selva morale e spirituale (Venice, 1640). An aboluste master of what he called the seconda prattica, he demonstrated in these pieces all of the skill he had acquired over the years in writing for the solo voice. Just as he had taken the madrigal to its peak of perfection, Monteverdi here realises the achievements of the Baroque period in this form of religious music inherited from the early centuries of polyphonic writing. The performers have striven to revive the typically Venetian context of the time, placing these sublime works in a framework of instrumental toccatas and sinfonias by his contemporaries Marini, Merulo and Antegnati.
This title was released for the first time in 1999.
*Rewards : Gramophone Editor's Choice, 5 de Diapason