Altri Canti d'amor

Leonor de Lera: This debut cd of L'Estro d'Orfeo borrows its title Altri Canti d'Amor from a madrigal from the Eighth Madrigal Book of Claudio Monteverdi. The programme focuses on music of the Italian Seicento, more precisely on the schools of Northern Italy, and mainly on the Venetian school. It combines both instrumental and vocal music - the latter in instrumental versions - around the theme of love. The use of instruments instead of voices may at first seem wrong with this title, but for me it suggests the idea of another way of singing about love. In this way we confirm the great value and importance that instruments received in the first half of the 17th century, when they were no longer used merely as accompaniment to the voice, but gradually became the main players of the musical stage and were deployed with more virtuosity than ever before.