This epic tale of lovers tossed by fate and fortune was once famous throughout Europe, inspiring hundreds of composers like Luca Marenzio. His seventh book of madrigals (1595) draws its texts from Guarini’s tragicomedy play Il pastor fido (the faithful shepherd) and travels through all the trials and torments of love.

These madrigals have been selected from Marenzio’s sixth, seventh (1595) and eighth (1598) books of five-voice madrigals and placed in the order in which their texts appear in the play. As Marenzio’s madrigals do not tell the complete story of Guarini’s play, we have filled in some of the gaps along the way with the help of artist Eleanor Meredith. This visualisation will cross the language barrier, helping to communicate the story.

Eleanor Meredith is an artist from the wilds of West Lothian, Scotland. Eleanor teaches on the illustration BA at Norwich University of Arts, and runs workshops at The BFI Animation Academy, The Apple store, V & A Museum, Ravensbourne College and the National Portrait Gallery. She has exhibited throughout the UK including at the Royal Scottish Academy, Brixton Village and Bankside Gallery. She has collaborated on projects with the Scottish Ensemble, Air Studio, Sinfonia Viva, Edinburgh Hogmanay and the Italian Sagra Osei festival.

Over the past 10 years, Fieri Consort have explored music from different corners of the European renaissance. The pioneering approach to harmony, word-painting and texture taken by those sixteenth-century composers has proved an inspiration for our projects which mix the past with the present.