harmonia mundi (en)

The new recording project by La Compagnia del Madrigale is dedicated to the Ninth Book of Madrigals (1588) by Giaches de Wert. Wert—Flemish by birth but active for most of his life in Italy at the Gonzaga court in Mantua—embodies the figure of the great composer capable of transcending fashion to create art that, as they used to say in the sixteenth century, is destined to remain “durable and eternal.” The Ninth Book, published during a period of personal tribulation and heartbreak over his thwarted love for the poetess Tarquinia Molza, marks a pinnacle of artifice and pathos. Here, Wert explores the heights of Petrarch’s Canzoniere, alongside verses by Torquato Tasso, Jacopo Sannazaro, and Battista Guarini, alternating luminous courtly homages with an innovative lyricism that foreshadows the style of Carlo Gesualdo. La Compagnia del Madrigale—one of the world’s leading ensembles in the performance of Monteverdi, Marenzio, Gesualdo, and Rore—delivers these pages with absolute artistic excellence.