Best Late Renaissance

William Weelkes’s “As Vesta Was from Latmos Hill Descending” is a complex six-voice madrigal originating from *The Triumphs of Oriana* (1601). This work showcases sophisticated musical techniques including detailed word painting, reflecting the era's focus on evocative vocal music. It was composed f...

Henry Gibbons’ Silver Swan is a significant English madrigal composed in 1612. This five-voice work explores themes of loss and fading beauty through a serene lament. It's notable for its intricate vocal writing and represents a high point within the late Renaissance madrigal tradition. The piece is...

Marenzio’s “Solo e pensoso” is a madrigal composed for five voices, showcasing a masterful exploration of chromaticism. Written in the late Renaissance style around 1599, it sets Petrarch's sonnet about contemplation and wandering. The piece is notable for its prominent soprano line, often described...

Thomas Wilbye’s “Draw On, Sweet Night” is a complex six-voice madrigal from his Second Set of Madrigals (1609). The piece stands out for its sophisticated harmonic language, employing chromaticism to evoke nocturnal imagery and intense emotion. It was composed during the late Renaissance period and...

Thomas Tomkins composed “When David Heard” a six-voice madrigal based on Psalm 35. This work is notable for its profound emotional depth and sophisticated vocal writing within the late Renaissance English tradition. It’s particularly appreciated by choral scholars, musicologists studying early Engli...

Monteverdi’s “Ah, dolente partita” is a five-voice madrigal from his Book IV, composed in 1603. The work sets Guarini’s poignant poem about a sorrowful farewell, utilizing complex chromatic harmonies and intense vocal delivery characteristic of the late Renaissance period. It's notable for its explo...

John Weelkes’s “Thule” is a complex six-voice madrigal from his 1600 collection. Noteworthy for its innovative chromatic harmony, it vividly describes the mythical island of Thule. This work is particularly appreciated by musicologists and choral enthusiasts interested in late Renaissance English vo...

Five-voice madrigal from Monteverdi's fourth book (1603), one of his most sensually charged works, built on the erotic conceit of the beloved's kiss as a little death.

O Care, Thou Wilt Despatch Me is an English madrigal by Thomas Weelkes, published in 1600 in his collection Madrigals of Five and Six Parts. The text addresses care as a destructive force and moves between resignation, agitation, and defiance. Weelkes reinforces those contrasts through chromatic wri...

Sfogava con le stelle is a five-voice Italian madrigal by Claudio Monteverdi, published in his fourth book of madrigals in 1603. The text depicts a lover addressing the stars and is set with bold harmonic and declamatory writing. The piece is one of several in Book IV that illustrate Monteverdi's tr...

"What Is Our Life?" is a five-voice English madrigal composed by Orlando Gibbons, first published in his 1612 collection *The First Set of Madrigals and Motets*. The piece sets to music a philosophical poem written by Sir Walter Raleigh, which examines the transience of life by comparing it to a the...

"Dolcissima mia vita" is an Italian madrigal by the late Renaissance composer Carlo Gesualdo, published in his fifth book of madrigals in 1611. The piece is heavily celebrated for its lush chromaticism, extreme dissonances, and affective text-setting, which are the hallmarks of Gesualdo's mature com...

Wilbye's four-voice farewell madrigal from his First Set of Madrigals (1598), notable for its refined simplicity and affective setting of a pastoral parting scene.

"Mercè, grido piangendo" is a five-voice madrigal composed by Carlo Gesualdo, published in his Fifth Book of Madrigals in 1611. The piece is characteristic of Gesualdo’s late-Renaissance style, heavily utilizing extreme chromaticism, unexpected modal shifts, and jarring dissonant harmonies. These un...

"Crudele acerba inessorabil morte" is a late Renaissance madrigal for five voices composed by Luca Marenzio. The piece sets a poem by Petrarch that serves as a lament on cruel and inexorable death, a somber theme common in 16th-century Italian literature. Marenzio utilizes expressive chromatic langu...

"A un giro sol" is a five-voice madrigal by Claudio Monteverdi, included in his Fourth Book of Madrigals published in 1603. The piece sets a verse from Giovanni Battista Guarini's dramatic pastorals, a common source of inspiration for the composer's early secular vocal works. It is distinguished by...

"Sweet Honey-Sucking Bees" is an English madrigal composed by John Wilbye, first published in his "First Set of Madrigals" in 1598. Written for five vocal voices, the piece exemplifies the late English Renaissance style through its use of word-painting to depict natural imagery, such as musical swar...

"Tirsi morir volea" is an Italian madrigal by Luca Marenzio, published in his Primo libro de madrigali a 5 voci (1584). For five voices, it sets Battista Guarini's erotic pastoral text depicting the shepherd Tirsi and his lover, and became one of Marenzio's most widely circulated works, reprinted ac...

"O dolorosa gioia" is an Italian madrigal by Carlo Gesualdo, published in his Fifth Book of Madrigals (1611) for five voices. It sets a text exploring the paradox of painful joy, and exemplifies Gesualdo's mature style with its extremes of chromaticism, sudden harmonic shifts, and intense word-paint...

"Cor mio, mentre vi miro" is a five-voice madrigal by Claudio Monteverdi, published in his Fourth Book of Madrigals in 1603. A setting of a contemplative love poem, it demonstrates the expressive use of dissonance and harmonic tension that Monteverdi and his brother defended in the preface to the Sc...

"Anima mia, perdona" is a five-voice madrigal composed by Claudio Monteverdi, serving as the opening piece of his fourth book of madrigals published in 1603. The composition sets an Italian poem to music, exploring intimate themes of love, forgiveness, and personal conflict. As an example of late Re...

“Love Me Not for Comely Grace” is an English madrigal by John Wilbye, published in his First Set of Madrigals in 1598. Its text asks that love be based neither on physical beauty nor on qualities that can fade or change, but on love itself. Wilbye treats the reflective argument through balanced voca...

“Zefiro torna” is Luca Marenzio’s madrigal setting of a sonnet by Petrarch, written for five unaccompanied voices. The poem contrasts the return of spring, birdsong, flowers, and gentle weather with the speaker’s continuing grief over Laura. Marenzio translates these images into changing vocal textu...

“Luci serene e chiare” is an Italian madrigal by Carlo Gesualdo, published in his Fourth Book of Madrigals in 1596. The poem addresses the beloved’s serene, bright eyes and describes their power over the speaker through paired images of pleasure, pain, life, and death. Gesualdo emphasizes these emot...

“Oimè, se tanto amate” is an Italian madrigal by Claudio Monteverdi included in his Fourth Book of Madrigals, published in Venice in 1603. The work sets an amorous text in which emotional pain and desire are closely intertwined, using changes in harmony, dissonance, and vocal texture to emphasize in...

“T'amo, mia vita” is an Italian madrigal by Luzzasco Luzzaschi, a composer and keyboard player who worked at the Este court in Ferrara. Its text centers on a declaration of love, treated through close attention to verbal expression, shifting harmony, and the relationship between the vocal lines. The...

“Flora Gave Me Fairest Flowers” is an English pastoral madrigal by John Wilbye, published in his First Set of English Madrigals in 1598. The poem invokes Flora, the classical goddess of flowers, and compares gifts from nature with the greater value of the beloved's affection. Wilbye sets the text wi...

“Hark, All Ye Lovely Saints Above” is an English madrigal by Thomas Weelkes, published in The Triumphs of Oriana in 1601. The anthology, assembled by Thomas Morley, consists of secular works honoring Oriana, a poetic name associated with Queen Elizabeth I. Weelkes's setting has a lively, dance-influ...

“Ah, dolente partita” is an Italian madrigal by Giaches de Wert, a Franco-Flemish composer active at Italian courts during the late Renaissance. It sets words by Giovanni Battista Guarini concerning the anguish of separation, a text Claudio Monteverdi also set in his Fourth Book of Madrigals. Wert's...