EXPERIMENTAL CHORAL MUSIC OF THE 17th, 20th, and 21st CENTURIES
Around the year 1600, the Italian madrigal reached its full flower, only to expire shortly thereafter. This concert will focus on the works of three innovators of this period, contrasting the early and later work of Giaches de Wert (1535-1596), Don Carlo Gesualdo di Venosa (ca. 1560-1613) and Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643).
Through extreme contrasts in vocal register, unexpected chord progressions, pungent dissonances, extravagant text-painting and alternations of polyphony and homphony, the late madrigalists extended the genre's expressive potential. The program will also include two modern settings of Renaissance English texts by Morton Lauridsen and a newly commissioned work by Jason Rosenberg.