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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

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Composer of the Week

Music: Classical

An informative guide to composers' lives and their music.

An informative and accessible guide to composers' lives and their music.

Composer of the Week: Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)

Composer of the Week: Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643): Episode 1: The Man from Cremona

Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)

Episode 1

Episode 1: The Man from Cremona

The Man from Cremona

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643), The Man from Cremona

With Monteverdi's rapid rise from Cremona choirboy to string player and composer at Mantua

Donald Macleod focuses on Monteverdi's rapid rise from Cremona choirboy to string player and composer at Mantua. Including Ardo; Rimanti in Pace; Cruda Amarylli; O mirtillo.

To mark 450 years since the composer's birth, Donald Macleod traces Claudio Monteverdi's remarkable rise from relatively humble origins in Cremona (he was the son of a barber-surgeon) to his subsequent career as instrumentalist and composer at the court of Vincenzo Gonzaga at Mantua, and his later promotion to the role of Director of Music at the Basilica of St Mark's in Venice. 

In today's episode, Donald traces Monteverdi's rapid rise from Cremona choirboy, with one collection of compositions published by the time he was 15, to attaining the post of string-player at the court of Mantua, the home of the fabulously wealthy Gonzaga family. With no fewer than four books of madrigals to his name by the age of 30, Monteverdi is already set to transform the traditional form of the madrigal - and in so doing, will incur the wrath of one Canon Artusi, who is offended by the composer's 'trenchant dissonances'!

Ardo
Hugues Cuenod, tenor
Paul Durenne, tenor
Nadia Boulanger, director

Ubi duo; Quam pulchra es; Ave Maria 
Gyor Girls' Chorus
Milos Szabo, director

Non si levava ancor l'alba novella 
E dicea l'una sospirando allora 
Ecco mormorar l'onde 
Concerto Italiano
Rinaldo Alessandrini, director

Rimanti in pace
I Fagiolini
Robert Hollingworth, director

Sfogava con le stelle
Si ch'io vorrei morire
Voi pur da me partite, anima dura
Les Arts Florissants
Paul Agnew, director

Cruda Amarylli 
O mirtillo 
Era l'anima mia
Les Arts Florissants
Paul Agnew, director.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Donald Macleod traces Monteverdi's rise from relatively humble origins in Cremona

Donald Macleod traces Claudio Monteverdi's remarkable rise from relatively humble origins in Cremona to his subsequent career as instrumentalist and composer in Mantua

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Composer of the Week

Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)

Episode 1: The Man from Cremona

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