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A,erican Record Guide: (09/2018) 
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Reviewer: John W. Barker
 

This program explores Monteverdi’s writing  either for solo or grouped voices in the monodic and recitar cantando idioms. It takes its title from the opening piece, the “love letter” monody from Book VII of the madrigals. There is another piece from that source, and one from Book VIII (the famous ‘Lamento della ninfa’), plus a rarity from the posthumous Book IX. Pretty familiar is the reconstructed solo version of the ‘Lamento d’Arianna’. There is an item from the Scherzi Musicali of 1632 and an unpublished manuscript survival from Naples, a charming soprano solo that I have not encountered before. By contrast, we also have two bits of operatic writing, from extremes of Monteverdi’s career: the Prologue to Orfeo of 1607, and the lament of Octavia in L’incoronazione di Poppea (1642).

 

The juxtaposition of these ten items, chronologically scrambled, does not reveal any striking new insights, but does demonstrate the composer’s lifelong experimentation with dramatic expressiveness. This is largely a solo program for Flores. She has a high lyric soprano voice, with sometimes just a touch of shrillness, but she uses it with great feeling and understanding. She shares the stage sometimes with four other singers (soprano Julie Roset, tenors Valerio Contaldo and Mathias Vidal, and bass Philippe Favette). Alarcon musters six other instrumentalists (mostly for continuo functions) and directs from the keyboards, all with sympathetic stylishness.

 

Fine sound. The booklet notes are thorough, though one must go to them to extract laboriously the sources for the selections (not identified in the track list). Full texts with translations are included. A stimulating Monteverdi collection, then, and more than just a recital.


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