Gramophone Awards
2024
Shortlisted - Early Music

Les Arts Florissants, Paul Agnew

Schütz: Il primo libro de Madrigali, SWV 1-19 (Op. 1)

1611: After two years of study with Gabrieli in Venice, Heinrich Schütz tried his hand at composing madrigals on Italian poems.

This mere ‘graduation exercise’ turned out to be a masterpiece: the young German composer demonstrated his ability to identify each nuance of the text with a different musical emotion, a refinement heightened here by the interpretation of Les Arts Florissants.

"Les Arts Florissants’ elasticity of expression brings out a particularly lucid evocation of rolling waves and ‘sweet harmony’ in the concluding eight-voice ‘Vasto mar, nel cui seno fan soave armonia’." - Gramophone Magazine, February 2024