Entitled Fire & Ice, the magnificence of Vincenzo Gonzaga’s court at Mantua was obliquely conjured in an hour-long programme featuring Monteverdi’s vocal music given by I Fagiolini. Southampton’s Turner Sims’ plain interior may not quite have the opulence of a Renaissance palace, but this madrigalian traversal brought its own musical riches, all curated and introduced by director Robert Hollingworth.
Judging by the choice of poetic settings, one might be forgiven for thinking Monteverdi had exclusive rights on lovelorn suitors variously called Amarillis, Phyliss and Theseus. But this programme was built around the lament, a genre forming part of the pastoral drama tradition. Nymphs and shepherds were also a vehicle for the composer to illuminate the heart of a text, elevating the 17th century madrigal to an unprecedented subtlety of artistic expression. If the predominant tone of the evening was one of emotional handwringing, I Fagiolini brought to life the anguish and ecstatic agony of love in exquisitely rendered performances.
Two early madrigals drawn from Monteverdi’s Third Book (1592) nicely illustrated churning emotions in a suitably fervent O primavera, gioventú dell’anno, carefully blended voices underlining its sensuous polyphony and soulful suspensions. Meanwhile, a doleful Rimanti in pace (described by Hollingworth as “a cross between Tallis and Puccini”) raised the emotional temperature, its sighing phrases and harmonic tensions ravishing the ear, even if the men seemed to enjoy the dissonances more than the women. Matthew Long (tenor) added his own earnest pleas to the Virgin Mary in Salve, O Regina, a solo hymn to sacred love.
Plaintive exchanges found expressive outlet in the miniature drama that is the Lamento della Ninfa, four voices supported by chamber organ (Hollingworth) and chitarrone (Eligio Quinteiro). Here, it was Monteverdi’s double suspensions and sorrowful dialogue that gave dramatic power to its romantic text, the composer’s theatrical instincts now fully revealed. Above a simple ground bass in its central section, a pure-voiced Rebecca Lea impressed as the deserted nymph, while commiserations from Matthew Long, Greg Skidmore and Frederick Long soothed her woes. It’s a measure of Monteverdi’s talent that his direct emotional language can communicate so readily today, and his aim for “all good music to affect the soul” can be amply rewarded.
This was notably evident in the dramatic imagery of the Lamento d'Arianna, the sole surviving portion of the lost opera L’Arianna, where our ill-fated heroine pleads for death after being abandoned on the island of Naxos by her beloved Theseus. Her travails were sharply defined, with ensemble and intonation impeccable. No less intense was the word painting in the heartache of Cruda Amarilli, a madrigal drawn from the Fifth Book (1605) that was considered a turning point for Monteverdi. By now, he was searching for a new intensity of expression between words and music which would effectively rewrite the rule book of the prima prattica and the polyphonic manner of Palestrina.
A startling virtuosity was heard in Monteverdi’s Parlo, miser'o taccio? and ardent recitations carried a lover’s petitions to the heavens in Sfogava con le stelle. Elsewhere, the tender vocal exchanges of Longe da te, cor mio made clear the torments of love, each imitative phrase sung with beguiling charm.