A major addition to Gavin Bryars' extensive vocal works, the I Tatti Madrigals are performed by the outstanding German early music vocal group Singer Pur.

This, his Fifth Book of Madrigals, was a special collaboration with the Villa I Tatti – the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies which lies amidst the enchanting oak and cypress-clad hills above Florence – for Gavin Bryars to write a series of madrigals using Renaissance Italian texts by Petrarch, Bronzino, Battiferri and Michelangelo il Giovane.

The beauty of the poetry is clearly reflected in Bryars’ music: perhaps because, in these madrigals, the music is always at the service of the text. Bryars’ pieces are full of the word painting to be found in the late madrigals of such composers as Marenzio, Monteverdi, Pallavicino and Gesualdo: accented passing dissonances, chromatic changes and extreme contrast of register for expressive effect, rising sequences in syncopation, they are all there. But they are all made his own, through his unmistakeable, idiosyncratic voice.

This undertaking originally began with a commission to celebrate the munificent patrons of the Villa I Tatti’s Music Library, but soon developed into a larger project, with commissions in memory of other members of the community, and for specific occasions. They were composed for the most part for the renowned vocal ensemble Singer Pur, which celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2017.

Tracklisting:
1. Cantai, or piango
2. I’ piansi, or canto
3. L’Aura vostr’alma
4. Bronzino in ciel l’alma beata luce
5. Sonnet 48 Qual per l’onde turbate
6. Sonnet 53 Fra questa piagge
7. Sonnet 54 Ergitti infin
8. Sonnet 55 Temprato aer sereno
9. Sonnet 76 Mentre Sepolto
10. Sonnet 77 Riposta
11. Chi punto ha ‘l core
12. A qualunque animale