This year's offering is Philippe de Monte's Il settimo libro de madrigali a cinque voci of 1578, one of the earliest through-composed dramatic cycles in the madrigal repertoire, and a clear step toward the dramatic art that would culminate, a generation later, in opera.
Things are not quite as they seem: the order in which the partbooks present the cycle in 1578 is not the order de Monte intended.
Matthew Alec Gouldstone has reconstructed it into an advanced, coherent madrigal cycle, scored for five specific voices chosen for their individual colour rather than convenience — music only singers of the first rank can manage.
