MONTEVERDI, C.: Madrigals, Book 4 (Il Quarto Libro de’ Madrigali, 1603)
Delitiae Musicae, Longhini
8.555310

Each Friday we select a track from a Naxos Music Group album released twenty years ago to provide the accompaniment for five minutes of your downtime.

This week’s pick from the Naxos label is taken from Monteverdi’s Fourth Book of Madrigals, published in 1603. The collection continued the expressive innovation that had characterised his Third Book, with texts dealing mainly with the expression of yearning and pain caused by the vicissitudes of love, not least in the erotic charge heard in our selected track, Sì, ch’io vorrei morire (Yes, I would die).