Claudio Monteverdi, Zefiro Torna

performed at Staunton Music Festival
part of the "Journeys and Landscapes" concert
August 12, 2017
Trinity Episcopal Church, Staunton, VA
Scott Mello and Derek Chester, tenors
with
Nina Stern, recorder
Martin Davids, violin
Anna Steinhoff, gamba
David Walker, theorbo
Mark Shuldiner, harpsichord
Video by Stewart Searle of Bravi Films
PROGRAM NOTE by Jason Stell
Born in Cremona, Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) became one of the most active and influential composers of vocal music, ranging from sacred music to the latest, innovative madrigals. He took a post with the Gonzaga family in Mantua, but by 1613 he was settled in Venice, where he would remain for the rest of his life. Sadly, only three of his roughly twenty operas have survived, along with a spectacular Vespers setting and a hundred madrigals for various voice combinations. Zefiro torna appeared in Monteverdi’s ninth and final book of madrigals, published posthumously in 1651. Zefiro is structured in two main sections, both of which use a repeated bass pattern above which the voices engage in tight imitation. The give-and-take between two tenors contributes excitement and visual enjoyment to the piece. At the final stanza, Monteverdi shifts chromatically from G major to E major for the poem’s darker, inward turn. As the end nears, the writing grows increasingly florid, culminating in very fast scales as the text mentions “now [I] sing” in amorous celebration of the beloved’s eyes.