MADRIGALI

A noble genre inherited from the Renaissance, the madrigal became with Monteverdi a veritable experimental laboratory. It accompanied the composer throughout his long life, as is demonstrated by this three-disc anthology of his finest madrigali. From Cremona to Venice by way of Mantua, Paul Agnew and Les Arts Florissants invite us to relive with them this major revolution in musical thought, the heir to a lofty humanism, which found its natural culmination in the nascent Baroque movement of the early seventeenth century.