A Valentine's (barbed) bouquet: Songs of Love & War, Monteverdi's Eighth of Madrigals

Monteverdi Madrigals, Book VIII (excerpts).

Altri canti d’Amor; Ho che’l ciel e la terra; Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda; Ballo, Movete al mio bel suon la piante snll. Altri canti de Mare; Vago augelletto che cantando vai; Ninfa che, scalza il piede; Dolcissimo uscignolo; Lamento dell Ninfa

Anna Dennis (soprano); Ed Lyon (tenor); Danni O’Neill (soprano); Clara Hendrick (alto); Rory Carver (tenor); Rob Macdonald (bass); Academy of Ancient Music / Laurenc Cummings (harpsichord / director).

Milton Court Concert Hall, London, 12. 02. 2026.

Laurence Cummings and the Academy of Ancient Music brought around half of Monteverdi’s Eighth Book of Madrigals (Madirgali guerrieri e amorosi, 1704) to Milton Court. It was preceded by a performance of the same programme at West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge, the previous night.

Love and war. One, at least, perfect fo Valentine's Day. The more cynically inclined might suggest both.

This was an evening to treasure: so many cherishable moments. The idea of the performance was long embedded, as Cummings explained in a pre-concert discussion chaired by Alexanda Coughlan. Even Graham Chatman’s programme notes were an absolute model of their kind: detailed, eloquent, giving a full background, including an introduction to the various books of madrigals that preceded his selection of wonders.

The Eighth Book of Madrigals (1638) is dedicated to the Emperor Ferdinand III, and contains 22 pieces. The balance, the ones we didn’t hear, will surely provide another evening’s worth of music. And then maybe we can have a recording of his complete book?

The programming of this selection was carefully considered, keeping adjacent numbers together in pairs against the two major events (with the ‘Combattimento’ and the ‘Lamento della Ninfa,’ Lyon and Dennis respectively, as the focal points for each half). 

After a brief but beautiful Sinfonia, ‘Altri canti d’Amor’ (Let others sing of Cupid, to an anonymous text) offers a beautiful tutti for soloists and instrumentalists, moving from the Love of the first stanza (gently swaying violin responses to groups of singers) to the Mars  - War - of the second (‘Di Marte io canto furibundo e fiero’; I sing of a proud and raging Mars), full of rapid repetitions of one note, pat of Monteverdi’s innovations in this music. This was also an opportunity to hear the two major singers of the evening (Ed Lyon and Anna Dennis), both confident, their contributions perfectly judged, against the other singers. If I was less taken by bass Rob McDonald’s contributions, there were more than hints that the ‘other’ soprano, Danni O’Neill, is a name to watch. 

How Monteverdi dares to explore the darker regions of the psyche in this Book: the texture darkens and the texture turns chordal (pulsatingly chordal, in fact) for ‘Hor che’l cil e la terra’ (Now that the sky and the earth and the wind are silent), only ousing itself at ‘Veglio, penso, ardo, piangio’ (I look, think, burn, weep), an absolutely stunning moment of perfect balance, both acoustic and emotional. A setting of Petrarch; it led to the second part of this text (‘Così suoi d’una chiara fonte viva’ (So from one pure living fountain) via a delightful harpsichord riff from Cummings. Here, in that second part, phases are passed between groups of soloists like so many parcels, and it was here that the choice of singers became clear: the singers work so well together in pairs. And how Monreverdi’s long melismas approaching cadences ‘spoke’ as an expressive device (‘Tanto da le salute mia son lunge’; I am so far from my salvation).  

Omitting the Giulio Strozzi settings (‘Gira il Nemico Insidioso Amore’) amongst others, on to the famous ‘Combattimento’ (‘Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda’ to give it in fullest form: The Battle of Tancredi and Clorinda). Here, Lyon became Narrator, which is the lion's share of the singing; other singers take the action, but they are more illustrative in function. Monteverdi's writing is graphic, implying movement and the clashing of swords. Anna Dennis’’ ‘O tu, che porte’ (O you who run after me) was a perfect insert, but the performance was most impactful due to Lyon’s perfect delivery (including diction, sometimes at remarkable speed) and Cummings’ coaxing of his players’ chameleon reactions to the score's changing effects and Affekts. How beautifully silences were calibrated, too, throwing into relief the score’s more vivid moments (‘Non schiavar, non parer, non pur ritrarsi’’; Dodging or parrying blows …). Action met beauty in this microcosmic drama; Dennis acting her part as superbly as she sang. A heart-stoppingly beautiful close to a piece that seems to contain it all.

Which might imply this was the end of the first half. Not so: the ‘Ballo Movete al mio bel suon la pianta snelle,’ which after an instrumental entrata finds the poet celebrating King Ferdinand’s rule (it may have been used for the ruler’s coronation in Vienna in 1636); the hymn of praise  is eloquent, interrupted by the opening dance for the ladies present (and the nymph of the Danube, to boot). Strangely, the programme booklet, usually so consistent in its documentation, omitted the author of the text here (Ottavio Rinuccini, himself writing in honour of King Henry IV of France). Another massive spread of emotion, from those outward-facing dances (with Cummings using the underside of his harpsichord as percussion instrument) to more inward rumination, it closed the first part beautifully.

And so to ‘Songs of Love’. Nice to move straight in, as Cummings did, as his love section opens with a blaze of collective light in ‘Alti canti di Marte’: Let others sing of Mars. The second part of ‘Altri canti,’ ‘Due belli occhi’ (Two beautiful eyes) found Lyon and Rory Carver in fine duet. Monteverdi’s setting of Giambattista Marino’s sonnet is genius, as spring fresh as  any stand-alone madrigal on frolicking lambs in a field of buttercups. Just as impressive was Cummings’ negotiation of tempo juxtapositions, like Rothko colour panels set against each other, with zero bleed. 

There are few more pleasing sounds than a theorbo strumming away, as William Carter reminded us in duet with Dennis for ‘Vago auglitto che cantando vai’ (Pretty little bird, you who keep on singing). Perhaps here Dennis and Danni O’Neill seemed not quite as evenly split as a couple as Lyon and Carver, but how delicious are Monteverdi's harmonic ‘slips’. And while the second part is in many ways Dennis’, with the Lament, it was Lyons who led ‘Ninfa che sclza il piede’ (Nymph, you who happily wonder, an anonymously authored Canzonetta). This is a blissful piece of complete compositional assurance in its additive constitution: Monteverdi layers on more and more from its opening of just voice and harpsichord. As he does so, the writing becomes more and more extravagant; the solo voice ‘Dolcissimo uscignolo’ (Serrtest nightingale’) is in fine contrast, a solo song for Anna Dennis, as pure as could be before the three female voices (Dennis, O’Neill and alto Ciara Hendick) enter, beautifully balanced. 

In perfect reflection of this, the ‘Lamenta della Ninfa’ opens with three male voices, a celebration of toe-curling dissonance and the power of arrival at a unison. Meanwhile, Anna Dennis looked lovelorn and restless (in perfect reflection of the text). And how we felt her torment as she sings ‘Amorm’ and the three voices continue to narrate, punctuating with cries of ‘miserere’.. The harmonies generated by that juxtaposition are off the scale, almost as agonising as the cries of ‘Taci’ (‘hush,’ or, as Google Translate has it, ‘shut up’). Less narrators now than observers to a tragedy, the male voices seemed to frame and underscore the pain of the nymph. 

How to encore after that? Something Cummings has been aching to do, apparently, and not a madrigal: Dennis and Lyon together, his dream team, in Poppea and Nerone’s closing duet from ‘L’Incoronazione di Poppea, ‘Pur ti miro’. Just when you thought it couldn't get any better, it did.