Ed Lyon excels in Monteverdi’s Songs of Love and War

By Stephen Pritchard, 13 February 2026

Loading, please wait...

See full listing

“as much concerned with the battles of love as they are with any real fisticuffs”

Reviewed at Guildhall School of Music & Drama: Milton Court Concert Hall, London on 12 February 2026

Monteverdi, Eighth Book of Madrigals:

Monteverdi, Book VIII Madrigals: Altri canti d'amor

Monteverdi, Book VIII Madrigals: Hor che'l ciel e la terra (prima parte)

Monteverdi, Book VIII Madrigals: Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda

Monteverdi, Movete al mio bel suon

Monteverdi, Altri canti di Marte

Monteverdi, Vago augelletto che cantando vai for 6-7 voices & strings

Monteverdi, Ninfa che, scalza il piede

Monteverdi, Book VIII Madrigals: Dolcissimo usignolo

Monteverdi, Book VIII Madrigals: Lamento della Ninfa: Amor, amor

Anna Dennis, Soprano

Ed Lyon, Tenor

Danni O'Neill, Soprano

Ciara Hendrick, Mezzo-soprano

Rory Carver, Tenor

Robert Macdonald, Bass

Academy of Ancient Music

Laurence Cummings, Conductor

Cummings and the AAM win ‘Leipzig's Got Talent’

Nick Boston, 16th April

The Academy of Ancient Music poses the question what might have been in Leipzig with stunning performances of Bach and his competitors to be the new Thomaskantor.

*****

Freudian slip: Handel’s Tamerlano recast as Trumpian tantrums

Mark Pullinger, 26th March

Opha Phelan’s staging presents the action as a grand, Freudian social experiment. It’s a risk – but the production is lifted by outstanding performances from the cast and the Academy of Ancient Music.

***11

Strong team for a Good Friday St John Passion

Roy Westbrook, 18th April

The greatest music of the 18th century – no arguments, please – is given a fine reading at London's Barbican.

****1

Academy of Ancient Music delivers a majestic Messiah

Charlotte Gardner, 16th December

Laurence Cummings and the AAM serve up Messiah-shaped serenity at the Barbican.

****1

Actéon and Pygmalion: three transformations for the price of two

Roy Westbrook, 9th October

Ovid’s Metamorphoses makes an ideal curtain-raiser to the Academy of Ancient Music's new season, with works by Charpentier and Rameau conducted by Laurence Cummings... who also sings!

****1

Academy of Ancient Music are inspired in Handel's Orlando

Roy Westbrook, 30th June

“A concert performance with neither scenery nor action would be a sacrilege,” wrote one authority of this opera. Nobody told the Academy of Ancient Music...

****1

More reviews...

Stephen Pritchard

Stephen Pritchard began singing as a treble at the age of eight and progressed to become a tenor in Portsmouth Cathedral Choir, the Gibbons Consort and now the English Chamber Choir. Writing about music has been at the core of his 40-year career in journalism, chiefly at the Observer. He has been known to play a pretty mean jazz double bass.

Ambition achieved: Ed Lyon excels in Monteverdi's Songs of Love and War