Written for courts and patrons whose pleasure it was to surround themselves with the finest artists of the time, the lament was a popular genre in 17th-century Italian poetry and song. Monteverdi’s Lamento d’Arianna (from a lost opera on the subject of Ariadne, deserted by Theseus on the island of Naxos), moved its original audience to tears. Caccini’s Amarilli bella mia, is a sensuous declaration of love.

“The music in this program is played in a creative and improvisatory manner that is surprisingly similar to jazz. The composer provides the material for the solo voices, and only a skeletal bass line for the accompanying instruments. The accompanists are expected to know how to play the correct chords according to certain theoretical rules of harmony”. [Annalisa Pappano]