Monteverdi Madrigal Madness

I was ill this week and had to give up very early on Wednesday’s rehearsal, which makes it a bit hard to blog about it, but I will hazard a guess at what happened. The choir will have concentrated on the Monteverdi madrigals, and Whitacre’s Leonardo Dreams of his Flying Machine, which are the pieces we’ve rehearsed least. David-the-Conductor will have regularly shouted that we’re not rolling our “r”s enough, and every time another 2 people will have joined in. At the interval there were probably chocolate chip cookies and Penguins with the tea (that may be wishful thinking about the Penguins). When rehearsing Leonardo there was probably some confusion about who would play the finger bells, and an uneasiness while everyone tried not to get picked for the “machine gun” solo at the beginning (my spies have actually informed me that Angela-the-Alto handsomely stepped into the breach and did a marvellous job. Well done Angela!) If this turns out to be broadly correct I clearly don’t need to go to rehearsal any more, I can just simulate it at home.

Monteverdi is definitely a good bet for the main music rehearsed though, as we’ve rehearsed them least. The madrigals are not only stunning pieces of music, but also very important in music history. Monteverdi was a driving force behind the change from Renaissance to Baroque styles, and his collections of Madrigals delineate the change superbly. In fact the fourth and fifth books were the centre of quite some controversy, as Giovanni Artusi (whom I envisage as a sort of medieval Mary Whitehouse) attacked the fourth book as an example of this dreadful new-fangled “modern” music that everyone was being seduced by. He appealed for a return to the traditional principles of Rennaissance. Monteverdi responded in the introduction to his fifth book, in kind of a fence-sitting way. He advocated having a “prima prattica” of following the Renaissance style, but simultaneously having a “seconda prattica” of more modern composition, also known as having your cake and eating it. This indecisiveness is reflected in his love madrigals. They go something like this:

Oh my love, Clarissa, you are buried in a tomb
I will never forget you
I will despair by your tomb for ever and ever
But also, I will try and move on with my life as well
We have to look to the future after all
But of course my heart will remain with you forever, oh sweet Clarissa
Actually can I call you Clarry from now on as Clarissa’s a bit old-fashioned
Hey Nonny No

[NB this may not be a completely faithful translation]

But Monteverdi’s simultaneous backward and forward looking means his music is a wonderful blend of the best of traditional renaissance and newer baroque styles. And we’re combining some of his most stunning madrigals in this concert with works by Lauridsen and Whitacre, who, 400 years after Monteverdi, have gone back to his Renaissance tradition to blend it with their own brand of modern music. It’s such an exciting, passionate mix of music, and I don’t think the choir have ever looked forward to a concert more. Next Friday is going to be a corker!