BAROQUE
Christmas Vespers in Venice
Monteverdi - Flaming Heart

MIXED REPERTOIRE
The Vocal Kaleidoscope (6 voices)
The Vocal Kaleidoscope (8 voices)

20/21st CENTURY
20th Century Work
New commissions

PAST PROJECTS
L'amfiparnaso
The Full Monteverdi
The Birds

'Flaming Heart'

7-8 singers
2 violins
Theorbo
Harpsichord/Organ

L’Orfeo – Prologue (1607)
Madrigals from books III (1592),
IV (1603), VI (1614),
Concerto (1619)
Madrigali Guerrieri Ed Amorosi (1638)

I Fagiolini’s new programme, Flaming Heart, (also a series of 3 CDs for Chandos) is the next step in their exploration of Claudio Monteverdi, following on from The Full Monteverdi, acclaimed worldwide as one of the most innovative productions for vocal ensemble ever.

Flaming Heart CD cover

In the prologue to Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, La Musica tells how she can ‘infiammar le più gelate menti’ – ‘inflame the most frozen hearts’. This ability to move the listener is surely what makes Monteverdi stand head and shoulders over his contemporaries. Flaming Heart brings together the rich variety of Monteverdi’s secular music from a capella madrigals to intimate duets and grander works with strings.


Beginning with five voices amongst the audience in a bittersweet lament, La Musica then appears amongst the audience to tell them of the power of music (L’Orfeo). Music to follow includes a violent fire of love, a dance suite for voices and violins and then, around an imagined coffin in the middle of the audience, his moving funereal sestina, ‘Incenerite spoglie’.

The performance finishes with ‘Hor che'l ciel e la terra’ which with six singers, violins and continuo paints a naturalistic picture of calm before the violence of emotions take over, finishing with the infamous final phrase covering two octaves in every voice-part ‘tanto de la salute mia son lunge’ – ‘so far am I from my health’. Normally the extraordinary vocal lines of this phrase are lost in the melange of vocal sound that one hears from the front of the stage but in Flaming Heart the singers are split up for maximum effect.

Monteverdi - Flaming Heart

Prologo (L’Orfeo, 1607)
Ardo avvampo (Madrigali Guerrieri, 1638)
Rimante in pace (Il terzo libro de’madrigali, 1593)
De la bellezza le dovute lodi (Scherzi musicale, 1607)
Presso un fiume tranquillo (Il sesto libro de’madrigali, 1614)

interval

Batto qui pianse (Il sesto libro de’madrigali, 1614)
Ohime dov’e il mio ben (Concerto, 1619)
Zefiro torna (Scherzi musicale, 1632)
Incenerite spoglie (Il sesto libro de’madrigali, 1614)
Hor che’l ciel e la terra (Madrigali Guerrieri, 1638)

This list of pieces must be confirmed with I Fagiolini before going to print.