Sixteenth-century Italian composer Orazio Vecchi not only was a priest concerned with sacred music (he wrote a number of masses and motets and was responsible for the music in his various church posts), but had a special interest in and knack for the writing of secular madrigals. His most famous collection, L’Amfiparnasso, sometimes called a “madrigal opera”, is a comedy that requires a small chorus of singers. This disc, featuring some of the most accomplished vocalists currently on the “early music scene” in Britain, presents Vecchi’s Caccia d’Amore (Hunt for love), a 17-minute-long dramatic story of a group of young men and women playing various flirtatious games, musically all done up in the refined, highly mannered style of the period. There’s lots of lightness and fun in the various lines, generously colored with all sorts of expressive inflection and florid turns, enhanced by these singers’ knowing bending, stretching, and compressing of phrases.
The disc’s primary offering is a collection of 16 separate madrigals that together make up Vecchi’s exploration of various “musical humors”, which in modern terms could best be defined as “moods”. Some of the descriptive words used as titles–“dolente”, “misto”, or “svegghiato”–may not be readily understood today, especially if you don’t speak Italian(!), but a look at the included texts tells all. The fact that the harmonies remain within fairly conventional boundaries and the wide-spaced textures rarely vary gives a sameness to these pieces that becomes tiresome long before the disc’s 66 and a half minutes are up. Nevertheless, director Anthony Rooley and his colleagues never flag in their commitment to bringing the energy and required emotional expression to these underappreciated little gems. They get fine support from the engineers who provide sensible balances and an appropriately bright ambience.
