London concerts by Rinaldo Alessandrini and his hand-picked group of six vocalists are as infrequent as they are treasurable, and the Queen Elizabeth Hall was packed for their latest appearance. The group is 40 years old this year, and though their repertoire now ranges across the Italian baroque, as well as taking in choral and orchestral works by JS Bach, it seemed appropriate that for this anniversary they should have returned to the composer with whom they first established their international reputation, Monteverdi.
Their programme was devoted to the fourth book of madrigals, the 19 settings in five parts of poets including Tasso and Rinuccini, which were composed around the turn of the 17th century and first published in Venice in 1603, while Monteverdi was still in the service of the Duke of Mantua. All of the texts are concerned with the agonies and ecstasies of love and their sometimes ridiculous extremes, which are reflected, heightened and even satirised in Monteverdi’s treatments. The level of dissonance between the vocal lines is sometimes high; there are moments, especially in the opening and closing madrigals, Ah Dolente Partita, and Piagn’e Sospira, when the clashing lines and chromaticisms sound more like Gesualdo than Monteverdi.
Those clashes acquired a wonderful expressive force in Concerto Italiano’s performances, thanks to the impeccable intonation and perfect balance between the voices. Those are qualities it’s easy to take for granted, simply because for these remarkable artists singing with such ease, purity and expressiveness seems as natural as breathing. This is, after all, music that in the group’s various incarnations they have inhabited across the decades, with Alessandrini always shaping those performances.
There is nothing contrived, precious or histrionic about the way in which they present Monteverdi, and their scrupulous attention to the weight and meaning of every syllable is a constant reminder of how much his music relies on the rhythms and colours of the Italian language. You won’t hear it sung any better anywhere today.
