Il Combattimento
di Tancredi e Clorinda

Reconstruction of the first performance of Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, preceded by Madrigals “without action”

S. Rossi, Sinfonia grave à 5
C. Monteverdi, Sfogava con le stelle (Madrigali, libro IV); Cruda Amarilli (Madrigali, libro V)
D. Castello, Sonata XV
C. Monteverdi, Anima mia perdona/Che se tu se’ il cor mio (Madrigali, libro IV); Sinfonia (da ‘Orfeo’); Ohimè il bel viso (Madrigali, libro VI); Sinfonia (Madrigali, libro VIII); Zefiro Torna e’ bel tempo rimena (Madrigali, libro VI)
B. Marini, Passacalio
C. Monteverdi, Hor che’l ciel e la terra (Madrigali, libro VIII); Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda        

This concert, entitled The evening of the battle, involves some of Claudio Monteverdi’s masterpieces including some of his Madrigals “without action” and the Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda. Torquato Tasso dates this between Jerusalem delivered (canto XII) and Jerusalem conquered (canto XV). It was presented in 1624 in an unidentified Palazzo Mocenigo in Venice, in the Carnival season. A report has it that “All the Venezian nobility were there, and were moved to compassion, even to tears, and the applause was like something never seen or heard.”
A narrator’s description of Tancredi and Clorinda’s actions gives all the details of the duel. Monteverdi was not trying to ‘represent’ Tasso’s text, but cites his work reverentially, with philological respect, allowing it all the expressivity due.
Tonight the concert will be played by La fonte musica, an ensemble conducted by Michele Pasotti, dedicated to the interpretation of music from the Middle Ages to the early Baroque period. The group comprises seven singers, and six musicians.