La Compagnia del Madrigale

In 1591, the composer Luca Marenzio dedicated his Quinto libro de madrigali a sei voci, that is his Fifth Book of Madrigals, to the Italian aristocrat Virginio Orsini, Duke of Bracciano. The Quinto Libro has been recorded on a 2015 Glossa release by the Italian ensemble, La Compagnia del Madrigale.

The seven singers of La Compagnia del Madrigale approach Marenzio’s music with a blend of warmth and clarity that allows each of the intertwining polyphonic voices to come through.

A Wedding Album for the Bride and Groom

The CD opens with the madrigal "Leggiadrissima eterna Primavera," which mentions the dedicatee, Virginio Orsini, by name along with the name of his bride, Flavia Peretti. Marenzio’s Book 5 madrigals were meant as a sort of “wedding album” for the Duke and his new wife Flavia.

Given its dedication, the bulk of the subject matter of Marenzio’s Quinto Libro is on the expected utopian tropes of beauty and idealized love. Cupid and nymphs and shepherds feature prominently in pastoral scenes set in blissful gardens scented with flowers and myrrh fed by flowing crystal rivers.

But despite the sweet and idealistic portraits of love in Marenzio’s Quinto Libro, the marriage that the madrigal collection honored was itself far from poetic.

Jealousy, Murder, Crimes of Passion and Hired Assassins

In what this recording’s liner note calls a “pacifatory marriage” between two powerful families, Virginio and Flavia’s nuptials came at the end of a long line of jealous murders, crimes of passion, and hired assassins.

In a soap operatic nutshell, here’s what led up to Virginio and Flavia’s wedding:

Virginio’s mother was strangled by her jealous husband, Paolo Giordano Orsini, after rumors she was having an affair.

Her husband then fell in love with a married woman named Vittoria.

Vittoria’s husband was Michele Peretti.

Since Vittoria and Paola couldn’t be together as long as Michele was around, Paolo hired assassins to ambush and kill Michele.

After that, Paolo tried to marry Vittoria but was denied permission by the Pope. So, the unmarried lovers left for the Venetian Republic together where Paolo suddenly died—likely of poisoning.

It wasn’t long until Vittoria, over a squabble about rights and inheritance, was murdered by another hit man.

In the end, the remaining members of the two families arranged for Paolo’s sole heir, Virginio Orsini, to marry Flavia Peretti—a relation of Vittoria’s first husband Michele—as a kind of truce.

Luca Marenzio

Marenzio’s music was incredibly popular, and even though he wrote a fair amount of sacred music, it was his madrigals—disseminated far and wide through collections printed in Antwerp and Nuremberg—that established his career on solid ground. In England, several of Marenzio’s madrigals show up in transcriptions for viol consort, and many were even published with English texts in the Musica Transalpina anthologies.