L'AMOROSO & CRUDO STILE

RossoPorpora, Walter Testolin

Luca Marenzio was the most brilliant representative of the sublime art of the madrigal during the last twenty years of the sixteenth century. Whereas the style of his early works is light, fluid and transparent, in his maturity Marenzio’s language turned towards a more complex, introspective attitude that made him the most emblematic musical exponent of Late Renaissance melancholy. L’amoroso & crudo stile brings together some of Marenzio’s finest madrigals, aiming to reproduce the most intimate expressive facets of a music of extraordinary beauty and profound humanity. With the emotional intensity and deep respect for the poetic text that distinguishes the ensemble, RossoPorpora begins in this debut recording its personal exploration and celebration of the madrigal, the earliest and still unsurpassed representation of Italian musical identity.

Marenzio:
 Come inanti de l'alba
 Cruda Amarilli
 Crudel, perché mi fuggi
 Crudele acerba
 Dolorosi martir, fieri tormenti
 Due rose fresche
 Fugitto è 'l sonno
 Liquide perle Amor da gli occhi sparse
 Non vidi mai dopo notturna pioggia
 O fere stelle
 O verdi selv'o dolci fonti e rivi
 Occhi lucenti e belli
 Qual vive salamandra in fiamma ardente
 Questa di verd'erbette
 Scendi dal Paradiso
 Senza il mio Sole
 Solo e pensoso i più deserti campi
 Zefiro torna

"The evolving style of these works tells a story not just of personal stylistic growth but also of shifting priorities and fashions in Italian music at the turn of the 17th century…The group’s tone, set by its bloomy pastel-coloured soprano, has absolutely no sharp edges. While this soft-focus approach brings out the ‘lightness, transparency and lyricism’ that the conductor Walter Testolin identifies in Marenzio’s early works in his booklet note, it serves the later less well."
Gramophone Magazine - September 2018