Academy of Ancient Music

At the heart of the first Italian cantatas was a new and astonishing emphasis on the voice. This was a revolution built on theory and scholarship, but above all on deeply-felt emotions laid bare through this most human of instruments — whether Monteverdi’s joyous celebration of spring in ‘Zefiro torna’ or Strozzi’s lovelorn lament ‘Udite, amanti’. Instrumental music of thrilling inventiveness intersperses the programme, which culminates in Monteverdi’s Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda. Here love and war collide to startling dramatic and musical effect, and an age-old tale is brought vividly to life through this freshly-minted form.