My sermon this month is based on a line from William Byrd's preface to his Psalmes, songs, and sonnets of 1611: ''As I have done my best endeavour to give you content, so I beseech you satisfie my desire in hearing them well expressed''. No serious composer of the Renaissance would have hesitated to endorse this view: a good song demands the utmost sympathy, dedication and labour on the part of its singers if it is to communicate to its best advantage. I make the point simply because today one encounters so few really skilful vocal ensembles—astonishingly few, given the extraordinary riches of the madrigal and chanson repertories that languish virtually unread on the shelves of our libraries. Admittedly the position has improved in the last few years, largely through the efforts of enterprising groups such as the Hilliard Ensemble and Collegium Vocale. Above all, however, it is the madrigal ensemble of the Consort of Musicke that has set the pace. Having attracted our attention through performances of relatively familiar English music, the group is now turning its attention more and more to the continent of Europe. If the present issue is to be typical, we can expect some wonderful records. ''Well expressed'' their readings most certainly are.
Monteverdi's Il quinto libro of 1605 may not be his best madrigal collection but it is certainly one of his most interesting, and it was immensely popular during the composer's lifetime. The book is famous above all for its concluding six madrigals, the first that Monteverdi produced with an obligatory continuo accompaniment (colla parte doubling of the bass is suggested for the rest of the collection, though the option is not taken up here). Some of the pieces are a little dull—the cycle ''Ecco Silvio'', for example, is not one of Monteverdi's most thrilling efforts—and many of the works are more wordily declamatory than the genuinely contrapuntal madrigals of the four preceding books. But there are some marvellous songs among them, several well known ( ''Cruda Amarilli'' and ''O Mirtillo''), others unfamiliar. Among the latter I was captivated most by ''Ahi come a un vago sol'', a brilliant rondo-like conception thrilling with delicately excruciating dissanance, which here receives an immaculate realization.
This is a magnificent record. The singing is on the whole superb, the ensemble finely blended, the diction clear, the interpretations sensitive in a most captivatingly underplayed way, the recording quality fine. It is of course especially good to have all the madrigals from the book recorded together, for this allows us time to acclimatize to Monteverdi's subtle language. It is my sincere hope that the Consort of Musicke will now go one collection back to Il quarto libro, surely one of the greatest of all madrigal publications, and lavish on it the same thoughtful musicianship. The mouth waters . . . .'