I Fagiolini - Design 2

THE FLAMING HEART: DIRECTOR'S NOTE

At the time we gave our first concert twenty years ago, in 1986, our senior British colleagues were riding the crest of a wave which saw an extraordinary pre-eminence of British vocal groups worldwide. Since then the rise of groups from many other countries has utterly changed the world of vocal performance, and it is in this new world that we have grown up. Of groups currently recording secular works by Monteverdi there are three Italian-directed Italian ensembles, and one might reasonably ask, then, why more Monteverdi, especially from a British group?

Firstly, for those who wish to collect Monteverdi book by book, there are several almost complete Monteverdi madrigal collections out there, allowing the listener a rigorous examination of the master’s stylistic development. Of course, producing collections of roughly the same vocal line-up had been a good way for Monteverdi to sell his music but it is not necessarily a way in which he would have wished it to be heard. Listening to so many pieces with no textural variety does not give each of them its most flattering platform – in the way that a meal of only main courses or desserts would be hard work after a while.

And so in this series we offer a better balanced meal (aware of the perceived irony of the Brits offering culinary lessons to the world), juxtaposing masterworks for different line-ups ensembles and, in so doing, aiming to keep the aural palette refreshed. We hope Monteverdi might approve. This is an expensive way to record and we gratefully acknowledge financial support from the I Fagiolini Friends, and an anonymous donation towards extra expenses associated with this recording, sine qua non now as always (and happily for us rather more promptly paid than the Duke of Mantua used to).

Secondly, is there a danger that some reviewers and European concert promoters are developing a phobia of early musicians performing music from outside their own country? What a closed world that would lead to! Would it be so bad to hear our admired cousins La Venexiana performing Weelkes or Al Ayre Espanol Purcell? Have they not learned things from their native repertoire which might make their performances of these works more and not less valid? What poorer places Venice would have been without Rore and Willaert, Munich without Lassus, and London without the Ferraboscos and the tromboning Bassano clan.

Our real reason for recording Monteverdi, though, is simply that we have always had a love affair with his music and, taking advantage of the particular line-up of all-round musicians I have been lucky enough to work with for the last few years (and building on our experience in The Full Monteverdi), we find ourselves wanting to share our experience of it, hoping that this will speak to the noble listener who will decide whether the approach works for him.

We have taken trouble with a number of technical issues, including the string band, correcting some accepted errors (of both a few actual notes in the part-books and commonly accepted mistranslations), and most importantly in the realisation of the bass line for continuo instruments. This last is a crucial part of the story: it is just too easy to insist that anything goes because it all comes down to taste. The same poor argument allows tasteless ornamentation now because we know that it was practiced at the time!

In Monteverdi’s five-part madrigals, the lower voices often provide a simple diatonic harmony against which dissonant upper voices delay or rush forward to create maximum tension. In the music for solo voices with accompaniment, the middle voices are effectively replaced by chordal instruments which do the same job, so that the expressive upper voices speak their dissonance against this clear harmonic palette. (Anyone who is familiar with the performance of these a cappella madrigals will recognise the harmony implied by the bass line and its few figures. If this is realised boldly and diatonically, wonderful and utterly idiomatic dissonant colours appear (e.g. throughout Ahi, come a un vago sol cortese giro); if done warily, incorporating the soloists’ dissonance into the continuo, the effect is lost. Consider a painting with strong colours: would one wish it hung on a neutral wall or a similarly strongly coloured one? We have figured boldly and simply, and time and time again a simplicity of purpose and harmonic rhythm has revealed itself on Monteverdi’s part, from the slower underlying dance-step of the ‘Ballo’ (Volgendo il ciel) to the variations over a bass which makes up the vocal writing in the Prologo and Tempro la cetra. A technical note to finish on, but all part of the job of understanding and recreating the spirit of Monteverdi’s marvellous music.