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Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)
Madrigals, Book 5
ARTEK, Gwendolyn Toth, director & harpsichord
Laura Heimes, soprano • Jessica Tranzillo, soprano • Barbara Hollinshead, mezzo-soprano • Drew Minter, countertenor • Ryland Angel, tenor & countertenor • Philip Anderson, tenor • Michael Brown, tenor • Peter Becker, bass-baritone • Charles Weaver, baritone, theorbo & guitar • Grant Herreid, lute & theorbo • Daniel Swenberg, theorbo • Christa Patton, harp • Robert Mealy, violin • Vita Wallace, violin & lira da braccio • Rosamund Morley, viola da gamba • Jessica Powell, viola da gamba • Motomi Igarashi, lirone & viola da gamba

1. T’amo mia vita (Giovanni Battista Guarini, Rime 66)
Heimes, Hollinshead, Minter, Brown, Becker, Weaver, Herreid, Swenberg, Patton, Wallace, Igarashi

2. Ecco Silvio (Guarini, Il Pastor Fido, IV: ix 1237-1250)
Heimes, Hollinshead, Minter, Brown, Becker

3. Ma se con la pietà (Guarini, Il Pastor Fido, IV: ix 1251-1259)
Heimes, Hollinshead, Minter, Brown, Becker

4. Dorinda ah dirò (Guarini, Il Pastor Fido, IV: ix 1260-1267)
Heimes, Hollinshead, Minter, Brown, Becker

5. Ecco piegando (Guarini, Il Pastor Fido, IV: ix 1275-1285)
Heimes, Hollinshead, Minter, Brown, Becker

6. Ferir quel petto (Guarini, Il Pastor Fido, IV: ix 1286-1305)
Heimes, Hollinshead, Minter, Brown, Becker

7. Troppo ben può (Guarini, Rime 100)
Hollinshead, Angel, Anderson, Brown, Becker, Herreid, Swenberg, Weaver, Patton, Toth

8. Ahi come a un vago sol (Guarini, Rime 102)
Heimes, Hollinshead, Anderson, Brown, Becker, Herreid, Swenberg, Weaver, Patton, Wallace, Igarashi, Toth

9. Ch’io t’ami (Guarini, Il Pastor Fido, III: iii 296-303)
Heimes, Hollinshead, Angel, Anderson, Becker

10. Deh bella e cara (Guarini, Il Pastor Fido, III: iii 332-346)
Heimes, Hollinshead, Angel, Anderson, Becker

11. Ma tu più che mai (Guarini, Il Pastor Fido, III: iii 347-362)
Heimes, Hollinshead, Angel, Anderson, Becker

12. E cosi à poco à poco (Guarini, Rime 104)
Heimes, Hollinshead, Angel, Anderson, Brown, Becker, Herreid, Swenberg, Weaver, Patton, Igarashi, Toth

13. Cruda Amarilli (Guarini, Il Pastor Fido, I: ii 272-279)
Heimes, Angel, Anderson, Brown, Becker

14. O Mirtillo anima mia (Guarini, Il Pastor Fido, III: iv 506-518)
Heimes, Hollinshead, Anderson, Brown, Becker

15. Era l’anima mia (Guarini, Rime 65)
Heimes, Hollinshead, Angel, Anderson, Becker

16. Amor se giusto sei (anonymous poet)
Heimes, Hollinshead, Angel, Brown, Becker, Herreid, Swenberg, Weaver, Patton, Igarashi, Toth

17. Che dar più vi poss’io (anonymous poet)
Heimes, Hollinshead, Angel, Brown, Becker

18. M’è più dolce il penar (Guarini, Il Pastor Fido, III: vi 930-943)
Heimes, Hollinshead, Angel, Anderson, Becker

19. Questi vaghi (anonymous poet)
Heimes, Tranzillo, Hollinshead, Minter, Angel, Anderson, Brown, Weaver, Becker, Herreid, Swenberg, Patton, Mealy, Wallace, Morley, Powell, Igarashi, Toth

Recorded in The Concert Hall at Drew University, Madison, NJ in August, 2010
Concert Hall Manager: Ellis Hilton
Pitch: a’=440; temperament: quarter-comma meantone
Recording Producer & Engineer: Dongsok Shin
Cover photo of the Ducal Palace, Mantua, Italy: Dongsok Shin © 2010
Back cover photo: David Tayler © 2010
Session photo: Dongsok Shin © 2010
Photo of Ms. Toth: Melanie Einzig © 2010
Notes: Jeffrey Kurtzman
Translations: Grant Herreid
Booklet design: Saliad Designs
© 2010 The Art of the Early Keyboard, Inc.

Monteverdi’s Fifth Book of Madrigals, published in 1605 and dedicated to his employer, Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga of Mantua, marks a turning point in the composer’s career. Some of the madrigals actually preceded their publication by more than five years, as indicated by the inclusion of three of them, Cruda Amarilli, O Mirtillo and Era l’anima mia as well as the second madrigal of the five-part cycle Ecco Silvio in Giovanni Maria Artusi’s 1600 and 1603 treatises condemning their modern style for unconventional dissonances and irregularity in the use of the modal scales. Monteverdi’s dedication declares that the duke had heard the music many times in manuscript, and now through their publication seeks the protection of the duke’s name and their “eternal life” in opposition to “those tongues that try to kill the works of others.” Monteverdi’s defiance of Artusi is manifest in placing the disputed madrigals at the very beginning of his collection, especially by opening the set with the striking dissonances of Cruda Amarilli about which Artusi had so vehemently objected.

The Fifth Book also contains an even more direct response to Artusi in the form of a letter to its readers announcing a forthcoming treatise of the composer’s own on what he calls the “Second Practice, or the Perfections of Modern Music” (Artusi’s first treatise had been titled “Artusi, or the Imperfections of Modern Music”). Monteverdi claims his duties have so far denied him the time it would take to publish such a treatise, but that he intends to show that he doesn’t compose “by chance” and that there is another practice besides the contrapuntal one championed by Gioseffo Zarlino (Artusi’s teacher and former chapel master at St. Mark’s in Venice), based on the contrapuntal style of Zarlino’s own teacher, Adrian Willaert. A more complete exposition of the second practice, penned by the composer’s brother Giulio Cesare, appeared in his next publication, the Scherzi musicali of 1607, but the actual treatise was never written, even though Monteverdi was still discussing it in letters with the theorist Giovanni Battista Doni in 1633-34.

The crux of the second practice was the organization of the music to express the meaning of the words in contrast to the traditional 16th-century approach of subordinating the text to the rules of the contrapuntal style. The texts of the Fifth Book had themselves been the subject of controversy, since the majority were drawn from scenes in Giovanni Battista Guarini’s pastoral drama, Il Pastor Fido, produced by Duke Vincenzo at Mantua in 1598 after many frustrating and lengthy delays. Guarini’s tragi-comedy had drawn the ire of literary theorists for its own unprecedented mixing of genres, and Guarini’s defense of his work had contrasted the genre distinctions of the ancients with his own new, more noble mixture—a posture loosely analogous to Monteverdi’s contrast of first and second practices.

Although there is no reason to believe Monteverdi’s madrigals were used in Guarini’s play itself, their style reflects the dramatic and emotionally charged nature of Guarini’s verse. In addition to highlighting emotional extremes with unorthodox dissonances and ambivalent or conflicted emotions with shifts in modal underpinning as well as between the soft (flat) and hard (natural) hexachords, these madrigals feature a high degree of chordal declamation to convey the rhetorical and theatrical character of their texts, sometimes alternating with short passages of imitative polyphony.

Rhetorical gestures in Guarini’s poetry receive parallel rhetorical treatment in Monteverdi’s music. Repetition becomes a matter of rhetorical heightening rather than serving a primarily structural function. Rapid shifts in texture, harmony and style illuminate Guarini’s witticisms, clever similes and sharply drawn juxtapositions. In Monteverdi’s new approach to madrigal writing, the performers of these pieces musically act out the rhetorical drama of Guarini’s texts.

Another innovative aspect of Monteverdi’s Fifth Book is announced on the title page: “with a basso continuo for cembalo, chitarrone [theorbo] or other similar instrument for the six final [madrigals] and for the others ad libitum.” These last six madrigals include four texts known to be by Guarini (the authors of the other two are unknown), but as independent poems rather than drawn from Il Pastor Fido. The need for the basso continuo derives from these madrigals’ concertato style, wherein the sometimes lacerated textures of the first part of the book, in which quick imitations fleetingly move from one voice to another, become extended passages for solo voice, pairs of voices, or trios, the latter two in imitation, parallel thirds or homophony. The dramatic, rapid juxtaposition of diverse techniques in the first thirteen madrigals of the book now become structural contrasts on a much lengthier time scale, with all five voices singing simultaneously less frequently. Thus the basso continuo is not only essential to provide full harmony for the thinner textures, but also gives space for pairs of voices to engage in extended ornamentation over slow-moving or sustained basses and supports a dialogue-like treatment of the first two sentences of Amor, se giusto sei. The structural diversity of several of the concertato madrigals is unified by extracting a key phrase of text and repeating it multiple times as a refrain, functioning both as a central textual idea and a musical repetitive device. But this device, too, is adumbrated in Ma se con la pietà, the second part of the Ecco Silvio cycle. The final madrigal, Questi vaghi concenti, crowns the Fifth Book with an introductory instrumental sinfonia, and a monumental nine-voice, double-choir rendition of a text by an unknown author. The madrigal is divided into two sections, with the second half following a repetition of the middle portion of the sinfonia. It is only in this second half that the ninth voice, an extra soprano, first enters with a lengthy solo. In Questi vaghi concenti the two choirs frequently sing simultaneously, whether in imitation or homophony, producing an impressive sound, contrasting, especially in the second half, with pas- sages for solo voice, two voices, or the first choir alone.

The duality of style between the first twelve madrigals and the last six is not as stark as Monteverdi draws it with his basso continuo. The earlier madrigals contain in short bursts the shifts of texture, especially the use of trios, that are more extended in the last six, while these latter madrigals also incorporate substantial sections that are quite similar in character to the earlier ones. The thirteenth madrigal in particular, M’è piu dolce il penar, serves as a transition from one style to the other in its mixture of five-voice homophonic and fewer-voiced concertato textures.

Despite this interpenetration of styles, the Fifth Book’s duality between homophonic rhetorical style on the one hand, and the concertato style on the other, not only laid the foundations for Monteverdi’s subsequent madrigal books, with the concertato style increasingly predominating, but also for his forthcoming new ventures in opera and dramatic ballets, beginning with Orfeo in 1607 and his sacred music beginning with the Vespro della Beata Vergine of 1610. This duality
is distinct from the duality of the first and second practices, frequently crossing the boundary between the two, sometimes by direct contrast, but often mediated by imitation, which is equally at home in full five-voice or larger textures and in concertato duets or trios, as already demonstrated in the Fifth Book.
Jeffrey Kurtzman © 2010

About the ensemble

Audiences love ARTEK concerts for their compelling musical settings of beautiful poetry and infectious dance rhythms that infuse the performances with vitality and spirit. Founded by director Gwendolyn Toth in 1986, ARTEK’s singers and instrumentalists are all recognized virtuosos with a love for music of the early baroque that is ARTEK’s signature repertoire. ARTEK has toured extensively to American and European festivals and worldwide with the Mark Morris Dance Group, and has mounted staged performances of early baroque operas and its own musical theater show, I’ll Never See the Starts Again (set to music of Monteverdi) in New York City and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2005. In 2010, ARTEK celebrated its 25th anniversary season with gala performances of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 in New York City and the National Gallery in Washington, DC; and made its Lincoln Center debut. ARTEK’s previous recordings include Monteverdi’s opera, Orfeo; Monteverdi madrigals as heard with the Mark Morris Dance Group, I Don’t Want to Love; and early Italian songs and arias with countertenor Drew Minter in Loveletters from Italy.

Director Gwendolyn Toth is recognized as one of America’s leading early music artists, performing with equal ease on the harpsichord, organ, and fortepiano. She has recorded Renaissance and baroque organ music on historical organs in Holland, and Bach’s Goldberg Variations on the lautenwerk. Opera News honored Ms. Toth as an “Outstanding Young Conductor” in 1989, and in 2001, she received the “Newell Jenkins Prize” for excellence in early music performance.

Praised for her “sparkle and humor, radiance and magnetism”, soprano Laura Heimes is widely regarded as an artist of great versatility, with repertoire ranging from the Renaissance to the 21st century. She has collaborated and recorded with many of the leading figures in early music, including Andrew Lawrence King, Julianne Baird, Tempesta di Mare, The King’s Noyse, Paul O’Dette, Chatham Baroque, Apollo’s Fire, The New York Collegium, Brandywine Baroque, Trinity Consort, Magnificat, and Piffaro.

During the past 20 years, soprano Jessica Tranzillo has gained critical acclaim in performances of opera and early music with ARTEK in festivals in Holland, the Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland and Regensburg, Germany. She has appeared with ARTEK at the Boston Early Music Festival and the first New York Early Music Festival. Ms. Tranzillo can also be heard singing Gregorian chant on Gwendolyn Toth’s CD, Organ Music of Heinrich Scheidemann.

The Washington Post described mezzo-soprano Barbara Hollinshead as singing with “an artful simplicity that illuminated the text and beguiled the ear.” She studied in the Netherlands and has since appeared with many of the finest early music ensembles in eastern North America, and has been a member of ARTEK since 1995. Ms. Hollinshead has made numerous recordings in genres from Sephardic song to Bach masses to music of Mrs. H.H.A. Beach.

An internationally known countertenor for nearly three decades, Drew Minter has sung leading roles at the opera houses of Brussels, Toulouse, Boston, Washington, Santa Fe, Wolf Trap, Glimmerglass, and Nice, as well as the Halle, Karlsruhe, Maryland, and Göttingen Handel Festivals. He has sung with many of the world’s foremost period instrument ensembles and recorded extensively. An active opera stage director, Minter is the artistic director of Boston Midsummer Opera. He writes regularly for Opera News and is music lecturer at Vassar College.

Ryland Angel began his singing career as a chorister in Bristol cathedral. After moving to Paris, he became a sought-after classical vocal soloist. In 2005 he also began a successful career as a pop singer. He now lives in New York City and splits his career between both genres. He has appeared on major opera stages worldwide (English National Opera, Opera Garnier, New York City Opera), on film soundtracks, and on over 30 recordings for EMI, Sony, Universal, and others.

Tenor Philip Anderson has been a soloist with many of the finest early music ensembles in the United States including Chatham Baroque, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and Piffaro. He sings regularly with ARTEK, My Lord Chamberlain’s Consort, and TENET. In 2007 he appeared on Broadway in Coram Boy. His many recordings include the Grammy Award nominated O Magnum Mysterium with The Tiffany Consort.

Michael Brown, whose voice has been described by Opera Quarterly as “mellow, musicianly”, received his first music lessons from his father and served as a chorister in Bethlehem, PA. Inspired by the singing of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, he has a love for both the lieder repertoire and contemporary music. He tours to Japan regularly to give workshops on ensemble singing with his wife, Phyllis Clark.

Peter Becker is an avid performer of repertoire ranging from medieval to Broadway shows. He performs baroque music regularly with ARTEK and Magnificat, and music of the Comedian Harmonists (20th c. German) as a founding member of Hudson Shad. He has performed throughout the United States and in Europe, South America and Asia in varied venues including tiny cabarets, cathedrals, opera houses, theatres and circus tents.

Charles Weaver has performed with Early Music New York, Hesperus, Piffaro, Parthenia, Folger Consort, ARTEK, Repast, Dryden Ensemble, Musica Pacifica, and Clarion Society. The Washington Post has called his performances “captivating” and “splendid.” He has accompanied early operas with Juilliard Opera, University of Maryland, Peabody Conservatory, Wooster Group, and Yale School of Music.

Grant Herreid is a versatile musician and director/teacher on the early music scene. As a multi-instrumentalist and singer he performs frequently with Ex Umbris, Ensemble Viscera, Hesperus, Piffaro, My Lord Chamberlain’s Consort and the Folger Consort. A noted early music educator, Mr. Herreid conducts classes in Renaissance music and 17th-century song at Mannes College of Music in New York, and directs the New York Continuo Collective.

Daniel Swenberg concentrates on Renaissance and baroque performance practices on the theorbo/chitaronne, renaissance and baroque lutes, early guitars, and the gallizona/callichon. Among the ensembles in which he performs are: ARTEK, Rebel, The New York Collegium, The Metropolitan Opera, Staatstheater Stuttgart, New York City Opera, the Mark Morris Dance Group, Stadtstheater Klagenfurt, Tafelmusik, Opera Atelier, Les Violons du Roy, Piffaro, and Spiritus.

Christa Patton specializes in early wind instruments as well as historical harps and has toured the Americas, Europe and Japan with Early Music New York, Ex Umbris and Piffaro the Renaissance Band. As a baroque harpist Christa has appeared with Apollo’s Fire, The King’s Noyse, The Toronto Consort, Seattle Baroque Orchestra, La Nef, Parthenia, Tafelmusik, New York City Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, and Opera Atelier.

One of America’s leading historical string players, Robert Mealy has been praised for his “imagination, taste, subtlety, and daring” (Boston Globe); the New Yorker called him “New York’s world-class early music violinist.” He has recorded over 50 CDs on most major labels. He is on the faculties of Yale University, where he directs the Yale Collegium, and Juilliard School of Music.

Vita Wallace, violin and lira da braccio, is known as a powerful, sensitive, and versatile musician. She has performed and recorded extensively with her brother as the Orfeo Duo, as well as with numerous early-music groups including Anima, ARTEK, the Dryden Ensemble, and Foundling Orchestra.

Rosamund Morley, viola da gamba, is a member of Parthenia, New York’s premiere consort of viols, and the Elizabethan group, My Lord Chamberlain’s Consort. She has also performed with ARTEK, Boston Camerata, Catacoustic Consort, Waverly Consort, Lionheart, Piffaro and Sequentia.

Jessica Powell performs on double bass, violone and viola da gamba, freelancing with the Washington Bach Consort, the National Cathedral Baroque Orchestra, and the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra. She completed her doctorate at Stony Brook, SUNY in 2010 and teaches cello, bass and piano.

Motomi Igarashi plays viola da gamba, lirone, violone, and double bass with ARTEK, Anima, the American Classical Orchestra, the Concert Royal, BEMF, Foundling Orchestra, Handel & Haydn Society, and Bach Collegium Japan. She appeared as a soloist with the NY Philharmonic in Brandenburg Concerto No. 6.

Texts and translations:

1. T’amo mia vita

T’amo mia vita la mia cara vita
Dolcemente mi dice e’n questa sola
Si soave parola
Par che trasformi lietamente il core
Per farmene signore.
O voce di dolcezza e di diletto
Prendila tosto Amore
Stampala nel mio petto.
Spiri solo per lei l’anima mia
T’amo mia vita la mia vita sia.

“I love you, my life,” my dear life
sweetly says to me, and with this single
most sweet phrase
my heart seems happily transformed
to make me master of it.
O words of sweetness and delight!
Take them quickly, Love,
imprint them on my breast!
Let my soul breathe for her alone:
“I love you, my life; be my life.”

2. Ecco Silvio

Ecco Silvio colei che ‘n odio hai tanto
Eccola in quella guisa
Che la volevi a punto.
Bramastila ferir ferita l’hai
Bramastila tua preda
Eccola preda
Bramastila alfin morta
Eccola a morte.
Che vuoi tu più da lei che ti può dare
Più di questo Dorinda ah garzon crudo
Ah cor senza pietà
Tu non credesti
La piaga che per te mi fece Amore
Puoi questa or tu negar de la tua mano
Non hai creduto il sangue che versava
Per gl’occhi crederai
Questo che’l mio fianco versa.

Behold her, Sylvius, whom you hate so much,
behold her in the guise
in which you wished to see her.
You yearned to wound her: you have wounded her;
you wanted her your prey:
behold her your prey;
you wished to see her dead:
behold her at death’s door.
What more do you want of her, what more than this
can Dorinda give you? Ah, cruel boy!
Ah, pitiless heart!
You did not believe
the wound that Love gave me on your account;
can you now deny this one struck by your hand?
You did not believe the blood
that I shed as tears from my eyes;
will you believe this blood that flows from my side?

3. Ma se con la pieta

Ma se con la pietà non è in te spenta
Gentilezza e valor che teco nacque
Non mi negar ti prego
Anima cruda si ma però bella
Non mi negar a l’ultimo sospiro
Un tuo solo sospir beata morte
Se l’adolcissi tu con questa sola
Dolcissima parola
Voce cortese e pia
Va in pace anima mia.

But if the nobility and worth with which you were
born have not, along with pity, left you,
do not refuse me, I pray you,
cruel soul, but still beautiful,
do not refuse me at my last sigh
a single sigh of yours. Happy my death,
were you to sweeten it with this one
most sweet phrase,
a courteous and pious utterance:
“Depart in peace, my love!”

4. Dorinda ah dirò

Dorinda ah dirò mia
Se mia non sei
Se non quando ti perdo
E quando morte da me ricevi
E mia non fosti allora
Che ti potei dar vita
Pur mia dirò che mia
Sarai malgrado di mia dura sorte
E se mia non sarai con la tua vita
Sarai con la mia morte.

Dorinda, ah! shall I say “mine”
if you are not mine
until I lose you,
and when you receive death from me,
and since you were not mine
when I was able to give you life?
Still, I shall say “mine,” for mine
you will be in spite of my harsh fate;
and, if you will not be mine while you live,
you will be mine when I die.

5. Ecco piegando

Ecco piegando le ginocchie a terra
Riverente t’adoro
E ti chieggio perdon ma non già vita.
Ecco gli strali e l’arco
Ma non ferir già tu gli occhi o le mani
Colpevoli ministri
D’innocente voler ferisci il petto
Ferisci questo mostro
Di pietade e d’amore aspro nemico
Ferisci questo cor che ti fu crudo
Eccoti il petto ignudo.

Behold, bending my knees to the ground,
I worship you reverently,
and I beg you for forgiveness, but not for life.
Here are arrows and the bow;
but do not wound my eyes or my hands,
guilty ministers
of an innocent will; strike my breast,
strike this monster,
the harsh enemy of compassion and love;
strike this heart that was cruel to you:
here before you I lay bare my breast.

6. Ferir quel petto

Ferir quel petto Silvio
Non bisognava agli occhi miei scovrirlo
S’avevi pur desio ch’io te’l ferisci
O bellissimo scoglio
Già da l’onda e dal vento
De le lagrime mie de’ miei sospiri
Si spesso invan percosso
E pur ver che tu spiri
E che senti pietate ò pur m’inganno
Ma si tu pure ò petto molle o marmo
Già non vo’ che m’inganni
D’un candido allabastro il bel sembiante
Come quel d’una fera
Hoggi ingannato ha il tuo signore e mio
Ferir io te pur ferisca Amore
Che vendetta maggiore
Non so bramar che di vederti amante
Sia benedetto il dì che da prim’arsi
Benedette le lagrime e i martiri
Di voi lodar non vendicar mi voglio.

Wound that breast, Sylvius?
You should not have uncovered it to my sight
if you really wished me to wound it.
O loveliest cliff,
against which in vain
my tears and sighs
dashed their waves and wind:
is it then true that you live and breathe,
that you feel pity? Or do I deceive myself?
But whether you are a soft or a marble-hearted breast,
I no longer wish to be deluded
by the fair appearance of white alabaster,
as that of a wild beast
has today deluded your master and mine.
I should wound you? Let Love wound you, rather,
for I could not desire
greater revenge than to see you a lover.
Blessed be the day I first burned with passion,
blessed be my tears and suffering!
I want to praise you, not to be avenged upon you.

7. Troppo ben può

Troppo ben può questo tirann’ Amore
Poichè non val fuggire
A chi no’l può soffrire
Quand’io penso talor com’arde e punge
Io dico Ah core stolto
Non l’aspettar che fai
Fuggilo sì che non ti prenda mai
Ma non so com’il lusingher mi gionge
Ch’io dico Ah core sciolto
Perchè fuggito l’hai
Prendilo si che non ti fugga mai.

This tyrant Love can do too much,
for running away does no good
for anyone who cannot abide him.
When I think sometimes how he burns and stings,
I say: “Ah, foolish heart,
don’t wait for him; what are you doing?
Fly from him so he can never seize you!”
But, somehow the flatterer gets to me,
so that I say: “Ah, shattered heart,
why have you run from him?
Seize him, so he can never flee from you!”

8. Ahi come a un vago sol

Ahi come a un vago sol cortese giro
De due belli occhi ond’io
Soffersi il primo dolce stral d’Amore
Pien d’un novo desio
Si pronto al sospirar torna’l mio core
Lasso non val ascondersi ch’omai
Conosc’i segni che’l mio cor addita
De l’antica ferita
Et è gran tempo pur che la saldai
Ah che piaga d’amor non sana mai.

Ah, how at a single kind and desirous glance
of two beautiful eyes, from which
I suffered the first sweet arrow of love,
full of a new desire,
my heart turns back again, so ready to sigh!
Alas, it does no good to hide, for by now
I know the signs by which my heart points out
that previous wound,
and I cured it so long ago:
Ah, a love wound never heals!

9. Ch’io t’ami

Ch’io t’ami e t’ami più de la mia vita
Se tu no’l sai crudele
Chiedilo à queste selve
Che tel diranno e tel diran con esse
Le fere lor e’i duri sterpi e sassi
Di questi alpestri monti
Chi ho si spesse volte
Intenerito al suon de miei lamenti.

If you do not know, cruel one,
that I love you, and love you more than my own life,
ask these forests;
for they will tell you, as will
the beasts dwelling there, the hard stumps and stones
of these craggy mountains,
which I have so often
softened with the sound of my lamenting.

10. Deh bella e cara

Deh bella e cara e si soave un tempo
Cagion del viver mio mentre al ciel piacque
Volg’una volta
Volgi quelle stelle amorose
Come le vidi mai così tranquille
E piene di pietà prima ch’i’ moia
Che’l morir mi sia dolce
E dritt’è ben che se mi furo un tempo
Dolci segni di vita hor sien di morte
Quei bell’occhi amorosi e quel soave sguardo
Chi mi scorse ad amare
Mi scorga anco a morire
E chi fu l’alba mia
Del mio cadente di l’espero hor sia.

Ah, my reason for living, beautiful and dear,
and once so kind to me, while it pleased heaven,
turn, just once, in my direction
those love-filled, starry eyes
as I never see them, so serene
and full of compassion, just once before I die,
so that my death may be sweet to me.
And it is just, since they were once
sweet signs of life, that they should now signal death,
those beautiful, love-filled eyes;
and that kind glance, which guided me to love,
should also lead me on to death;
and that she who was my dawn
should now be the evening star of my declining day.

11. Ma tu più che mai

Ma tu più che mai dura
Favilla di pietà non senti ancora
Anzi t’inaspri più quanto più prego
Cosi senza parlar dunque m’ascolti?
A chi parlo infelice a un muto marmo sasso?
S’altro non mi vuoi dir dimmi almen mori
E morir mi vedrai
Quest’è ben empio Amor miseria estrema
Che si rigida
Ninfa non mi risponda
E l’armi d’una sola
Sdegnosa e cruda voce
Sdegni di proferire al mio morir.

But you, more obdurate than ever,
still you do not feel a spark of compassion;
indeed, you become more rigid the more I beg you.
Thus, speaking not, you listen to me?
To whom do I speak, unhappy me, to mute marble?
Though you can say nothing else to me, at least say “Die!”
Wicked love, this is truly the height of misery,
and you will see me die.
that a maiden so merciless
does not answer, and armed
with a single disdainful, cruel word,
she disdains to proffer it
to cause my death.

12. E cosi à poco à poco

E cosi à poco à poco
Torno Farfalla semplicetta al foco
E nel fallace sguardo
Un’altra volta mi consumm’e ardo
Ah che piaga d’amore
Quanto si cura più tanto men sana
Ch’ogni fatica è vana
Quando fu punto un giovinetto core
Dal primo e dolce strale
Chi spegne antico incendio il fa immortale.

And so little by little,
I return, a foolish moth, to the flame,
and in those deceitful eyes
once again I burn and am consumed.
Ah, a love wound:
the more it is treated the less it heals.
For all labor is in vain
once a young heart is stricken
by the first sweet arrow;
whoever puts out an old flame makes it eternal.

13. Cruda Amarilli

Cruda Amarilli che col nome ancora
D’amar ahi lasso amaramente insegni
Amarilli del candido ligustro
Più candida e più bella
Ma de l’aspido sordo
E più sorda e più fera e più fugace
Poi che col dir t’offendo
I mi morrò tacendo.

Cruel Amaryllis, who with your very name
alas, you teach me bitterly to love;
Amaryllis, whiter and lovelier
than the white lily,
but more deaf, more fierce and fleeing
than the deaf asp;
since by speaking I offend you,
I shall die in silence.

14. O Mirtillo anima mia

O Mirtillo anima mia
Se vedesti qui dentro
Come sta il cor di questa
Che chiami crudelissima Amarilli
So ben che tu di lei
Quella pietà che da lei chiedi havresti.
O anime in amor troppo infelici
Che giova a te cor mio l’esser amato
Che giova a me l’aver si caro amante
Perche crudo destino
Ne disunissi tu s’Amor ne stringe
E tu perchè ne stringe
Se ne parte il destin perfido Amore.

O Myrtillus, Myrtillus, my love,
if only you could see
into the heart of her
whom you call most cruel Amaryllis,
I know that you would feel for her
that pity that you ask of her.
O souls too unhappy in love!
What good is it to you, my love, to be loved,
what good is it to me to have such a dear lover?
Why, cruel destiny,
do you part those whom Love unites?
and you, why do you unite us,
treacherous Love, if destiny separates us?

15. Era l’anima mia

Era l’anima mia
Già presso a l’ultim’hore
E languia come langue alma che more
Quand’anima più bella più gradita
Volse lo sguard’in si pietoso giro
Che mi manten’ in vita
Parean dir que’ bei lumi
Deh perchè ti consumi
Non m’è si caro il cor ond’io respiro
Come se’ tu cor mio
Se mori ohimè non mori tu mor’io.

My life was already
near its last hour
and was languishing as a dying soul languishes,
when a most beautiful and most pleasing soul
turned its gaze with so much pity
that it kept me alive.
Those beautiful eyes seemed to say:
“Ah, why are you wasting away?
The heart which with I breath is not as dear to me
as you are, my heart;
If you die, alas, you do not die: I die.”

16. Amor se giusto sei

Amor se giusto sei
Fa che la donna mia
Anch’ella giusta sia
Io t’amo tu il conosci e ella il vede
Ma più mi strazia e mi traffigge il core
E per più mio dolore
E per dispreggio tuo non mi dà fede.
Non sostener Amor che nel tuo regno
La dov’io ho sparta fede mieta sdegno
Ma fa giusto signore
Ch’in premio del amor io colga amore.

Love, if you are just,
make my lady
also be just.
I love you, you know it, and she sees it,
but she tortures me more, and pierces my heart,
and to make my sorrow greater, and your disgrace,
she will not pledge her faith to me.
In your kingdom, Love, don’t let me
reap disdain where I sowed faithfulness,
but let me, just Lord,
as a reward for love, receive love.

17. Che dar più vi poss’io

Che dar più vi poss’io
Caro mio ben prendete eccovi il core
Pegno della mia fede e del mio amore
E se per darli vita a voi l’invio
No’l lasciate morire
Nudritel’ di dolcissimo gioire
Che vostr’il fece amor natura mio
Non vedete mia vita
Che l’imagine vostr’é in lui scolpita.

What more can I give you?
My dear, take this, here is my heart,
a pledge of my fidelity and my love.
And if to give it life I send it to you,
do not let it die;
nourish it with sweetest joys,
for though Nature made it mine, Love made it yours.
Do you not see, my darling,
that your image is engraved upon it?

18. M’è più dolce il penar

M’è più dolce il penar per Amarilli
Che’l gioir di mill’altre
E se gioir di lei
Mi vieta il mio destino
Hoggi si moia
Per me pur ogni gioia
Viver io fortunato
Per altra Donna mai per altr’ Amore
Ne volendo il potrei
Ne potendo il vorrei
E s’esser può che’n alcun tempo mai
Ciò voglia il mio volere
O possa il mio potere
Prego il cielo ed Amor che tolto pria
Ogni voler ogni poter mi sia.

It is sweeter to me to suffer for Amaryllis
than to enjoy a thousand other women;
and if enjoyment of her
is forbidden me by my fate,
then today
may every other joy die for me.
Can I ever live happily
with another woman, another love?
If I could, I would not
If I would, I could not
And were it to come to pass
that my will would wish it
or my strength would be equal to it
I pray to heaven, and to Love, that before that time
every wish and every strength be taken from me.

19. Questi vaghi

Questi vaghi concenti
Che gl’augellett’intorno
Vanno temprando a l’apparir del giorno
Sono cred’io d’Amor desiri ardenti
Sono pene e tormenti
E pur fanno le selv’e’l ciel gioire
Al lor dolce languire
Deh se potessi anch’io
Cosi dolce dolermi
Per questi poggi solitari e ermi
Che quell’a cui piacer sola desio
Gradiss’il pianger mio
Io bramerei
Sol per piacer a lei
Eterni i pianti miei.

The delightful harmonies
that the songbirds roundabout
sing together at the break of day
are, I believe , the burning passions of love;
they are pains and torments,
and yet they make the woods and sky rejoice
with their sweet languishing.
Ah, if I too were able
to lament so sweetly
on these solitary and deserted hills,
so that the one woman whose pleasure I desire
took delight in my weeping
if only to give pleasure to her
I would wish
my sorrows were eternal.

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