Five years separate the publication of Monteverdi’s Sixth Book of Madrigals (1614) from the Seventh (1619). “The stylistic rupture between the Sixth and Seventh Books is evident,” notes conductor Rinaldo Alessandrini. “We move from an anthology generally conceived, as in the previous books, for a group of five singers (though already accompanied by continuo in the second part of the Sixth Book) to an almost total renunciation of the premise of an exclusively vocal, polyphonic composition, often still entailing a contrapuntal dimension.”
Monteverdi: Seventh Book of Madrigals – Concerto Italiano, Rinaldo Alessandrini
