Love and Loss

Love and loss: two human experiences which are intrinsically linked. Art, music and poetry for centuries has dealt with the juxtaposition of love's abundant joy and happiness, and the desperate sorrow of love lost. The musicians of Venice in the first half of the 17th century were no different, and now, with new compositional techniques and performance styles designed to drive ever further into the visceral depths of human emotion, the great gap between joy and sadness has never been more vivid.

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Madrigals from Barbara Strozzi and Claudio Monteverdi will guide us through the joys and pains of romance, but most hauntingly of all, Tarquinio Merula's Hor che tempo di dormire shows us the heartbreaking love of Mary for her child Jesus, as she rocks him in her arms and laments of the pain she knows he will endure.