Classical new release - Harmonia Mundi UK Distribution

Label: Pan Classics
File Under: Classical/Secular
Vocal music
Catalogue No: PC10280
Barcode: 7619990102804
NORMAL Price
Format: 1 CD
Packaging: digipack
Daltrocanto:
Alena Dantcheva, Roberta Guia [sopranos]
Alessandro Carmignani [countertenor]
Gian Paolo Fagotto, Gianluca Ferrarini [tenors]
Walter Testolin [bass]
Ugo Nastrucci [lute]
Dario Tabbia [direction]
PALLAVICINO: Madrigali
Daltrocanto
Dario Tabbia
RELEASE DATE
3RD JUNE 2013
Benedetto Pallavicino is one of the foremost madrigal composers of his time. In 1596 he obtained the position of music
director at the Gonzaga court in Mantua, towards which he had been striving for a long time – not exactly a cause for joy
on the part of his competitor, Monteverdi, 20 years younger and also employed in Mantua. Pallavicino created a total of
ten madrigal books for four to six voices, in which an orientation towards the 'modern' madrigal style can be detected
from the fourth book onwards.
The ensemble Daltrocanto has selected 19 madrigals from these late madrigal books, based on texts by Giovanni
Battista Guarini. His 'Rime' and especially 'Pastor Fido' are amongst the most beloved text sources for madrigals. The
texts deal with love in all its facets and Pallavicino sets them with typical stylistic devices such as sharp dissonances and
chromatic passages as well as homophonic blocks contrasting with flowing contrapuntal sections. The emotions
contained in the poetry are rhetorically and expressively illuminated. Thus Pallavicino proves to be one of the pioneers in
the development of the manner of rhetorical-expressive composition that was to culminate in Monteverdi's Seconda
Prattica. Some ravishing singing from Alena Dantcheva...