One of the most characteristic manifestations of the Counter-Reformation was the spiritual madrigal, a polyphonic song with religious texts in Italian. The spritual madrigal was sung for recreational or paraliturgical music making. This was the first book exclusively dedicated to spiritual madrigals. Archpriest Giovanni del Bene, who worked in Verona under the reform Bishop Gian Matteo Giberti, commissioned the book. Musica spirituale is an eclectic collection that transmits a variety of poetic and musical styles dating from ca. 1538 to the late 1550s, from stanzas of Petrarch's "Vergine bella" set by Vincenzo Ruffo to madrigal cycles of six and thirteen stanzas by Lamberto Courtois and Giovanni Nasco, to the meditative terza rima "Pianget'egri mortali," a poem in the guise of a sermon set in an unusual musical style by Adrian Willaert.

Contents

1. Mio pan'anzi mia vita, "Canzon al S. Sacramento," Giovanni Nasco

2. Destra di quel amor, "Canzon," Lamberto Courtois

3. Pianget'egri mortali, Adrian Willaert

4. Dolc'è la pace mia

5. Ampia viva fornace, Grisostimo da Verona

6. Vergine santa, d'ogni gratia piena, Vincenzo Ruffo

7. Vergine sol'al mondo, Vincenzo Ruffo

8. Deh sparg'o miser'alma, Vincenzo Ruffo

9. Vergine santa, immaculata e pia, Grisostimo da Verona [or Giovanni Contino]

10. O foss'il mio cor fieno, Grisostimo da Verona

11. Con doglia e con pieta, Maistre Jhan da Ferrara

12. I' vo piangendo i miei passati tempi, Vincenzo Ruffo

Reviews

Sarah M. Stoycos, Notes, Dec. 2004.