モンテヴェルディ: マドリガーレ集第7巻

アレッサンドリーニが導く
ドラマティックにしてなまめかしいモンテヴェルディ

アレッサンドリーニのモンテヴェルディ最新録音の登場です。アレッサンドリーニはこれまでにマドリガーレ集第2巻、第3巻、第4巻、第5巻、第6巻、第8巻と録音しているほか、オルフェオなどの重要作品も録音。モンテヴェルディにかけてはひとしおの思い入れをもっています。ここでも、音楽自体がテキストの世界を物語るようなモンテヴェルディのドラマティックな作風を見事にとらえ、よい意味で非常になまめかしい演奏を展開しています。歌い手たちの、たいへん表情豊かな歌唱力に圧倒されると同時に、器楽アンサンブルの面々による繊細かつ絶妙な歌とのバランスも見事です。
キングインターナショナル

Claudio Monteverdis Seventh Book of Madrigals have been recorded well by several early music groups, but one expects superior readings from harpsichordist Rinaldo Alessandrini and his vocal-instrumental ensemble Concerto Italiano, and indeed, one gets them here. Alessandrinis versions are on the spare side, with seven voices and an instrumental ensemble of 13 that includes three continuo instruments plus percussion, with Alessandrinis harpsichord prominent in the mix, but he has all the equipment he needs to deliver a really distinctive "concerto," as the title of the Seventh Book boldly proclaims itself. With this book, Monteverdi moved decisively away from the old polyphonic madrigal ideal and toward the text-based settings that would be the norm for vocal music over the next four centuries and counting. Every facet of Alessandrinis readings supports this feature, and the listener who plunges into the texts and gives these performances a close listen will be richly rewarded. He presents the madrigals not in the order in which they were published (which wasnt intended as a guide to performance anyhow), instead grouping the texted pieces by poet. This points to the stylistic features an audience of Monteverdis time would have been interested in, and Alessandrini supports these features with readings that differentiate the pieces sharply from one another. The pastoral "Tirsi e Clori," with an anonymous text, is almost a little opera, with vivid readings by Alessandrinis singers, while the smaller duets have madrigalistic intensity of a new kind. Naives engineering team delivers idiomatic sound from the Sala della Carita in Padua, a bonus on top of an ideal recording of music by the later Monteverdi. ~ James Manheim