Composer of the Week: Monteverdi

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Composer of the Week

Music: Classical

Composer of the Week - Brand

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): Poverty in the swamps

Poverty in the swamps

Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643), Poverty in the swamps

Donald Macleod explores the reality of Monteverdi’s life at the Gonzaga court in Mantua.

Donald Macleod explores the realities of Monteverdi’s life at the Gonzaga court in Mantua, with his hedonistic, immoral and dangerously unpredictable boss Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga.

Donald Macleod explores the reality of Monteverdi’s life at the Gonzaga court in Mantua.

Claudio Monteverdi is undoubtedly one of the most important figures in the development of Western music. As a composer of both secular and sacred music, over the course of his career he worked for court, church and was one of the key figures in the development of opera. During this week of programmes, Donald Macleod tracks Monteverdi’s career across three cities, from promising child prodigy, through poverty and plague, to his final years in the priesthood, with huge artistic successes along the way.

In Tuesday’s programme, Donald explores the harsh realities of Monteverdi’s life at the Gonzaga court in Mantua, with experiences of war which would have a profound impact on the composer for the rest of his life, unpaid wages which lead to large debts, and a hedonistic, immoral and dangerously unpredictable boss in Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga. But it was also a time of great breakthroughs in Monteverdi’s musical style, though he had to contend with criticism for his musical “irregularities”.
		
Zefiro torna e di soavi accenti 
Nuria Rial, soprano
Philippe Jaroussky, counter-tenor
L'Arpeggiata
Christina Pluhar, director

Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda
Patrizia Ciofi, soprano
Rolando Villazón, tenor
Topi Lethipuu, tenor
Le Concert d’Astrée
Emmanuelle Haïm, harpsichord

De la Bellezza le dovute lodi, SV 245
Concerto Italiano
Rinaldo Alessandrini, conductor

4th book of madrigals - Anima mia, perdona; Che se tu se il cor mio
La Venexiana

5th book of madrigals - Cruda Amarilli
La Venexiana

4th book of madrigals - Ah, dolente partita!; Quel augellin che canta
Le Nuove Musiche
Krijn Koetsvelt, director

Produced by Sam Phillips.

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

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 presents an in-depth survey of the life and work of Claudio Monteverdi.

Donald Macleod presents an in-depth survey of the life and work of this week's composer, Claudio Monteverdi.

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Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)

Poverty in the swamps

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