Teatro d’Amore
Claudio Monteverdi
Selected works
L’Arpeggiata
Christina Pluhar, director
Virgin Classics
Bright and inventive, the early-music vocal and instrumental group L’Arpeggiata — steered by intrepid theorbist and baroque harpist Christina Pluhar — takes us on an unapologetically idiosyncratic journey through Monteverdi. The Renaissance composer’s avant-garde tendencies are by turns revealed and exploited, most aggressively in the jazzy basso continuo cum walking bass of Ohimè ch’io cado and the swing treatment of the celebrated Chiome d’oro, but also, more subtly, in the gentle rubato of Pur ti miro, the light syncopation of Damigella tutta bella, and the adult-contemporary/Buena Vista Social Club-infused ostinato of Amor. Even seemingly familiar Renaissance fare (Sinfonie & Moresca) receives a late infusion of slightly alien percussion. But the goal ultimately is not cheap fusion nor a cynical popularization of the already accessible, but a rather pleasing reminder that while musical innovation spans centuries, genius grooves from Monteverdi and Mingus may share more than is readily apparent.
- Ben Finane
