Morten Lauridsen's Madrigali (1987) incorporates stylistic features of Italian madrigalists like Monteverdi and Gesualdo, such as vivid word-painting and mercurial harmonic shifts.
Historical Context
Many of the Renaissance madrigals on this album come down to us due to the flourishing of printed music in Venice from the late 1530s, particularly from the publishing houses of Gardano and Scotto.
Composer Biography
Morten Lauridsen, whose music is featured on this album, was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2007, the highest artistic award in the United States.
Cultural Impact
Printed madrigals became so popular between 1550 and 1570, especially among young nobles, that they comprised almost three-quarters of all music published in Venice during that period.
Composer Biography
Paul Mealor, the conductor of Con Anima Chamber Choir, gained international attention when his motet, Ubi caritas, was performed at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in 2011.
Historical Context
A new musical notation style called 'note nere' or 'black-note' emerged in the 1540s, using shorter, filled-in notes, which allowed for a more fluid and rhetorical musical style in madrigals.
Compositional Technique
Lauridsen's Madrigali is built in an arch form, with the fourth movement, 'Io piango', as its keystone, and features a recurring 'fire chord' (B flat minor plus a dissonant C).
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