Vecchi: Battaglia d’Amor e Dispetto and Mascherata della Malinconia et Allegrezza

Two 10-voice works in representational polychoral style by the master of the "human comedy" in music are offered in this edition. The Battaglia, a massive psychomachian tableau, in which the personifications of Amor (Love), Dispetto (Scorn), and their respective retinues engage in furious combat, wittily celebrates the wedding of Celia Farnese to Marco Pio of Savoy at Sassuolo in 1587. The Mascherata, performed outdoors at Modena in 1604, is a polyphonic dialogue madrigal in which the masks of Malinconia (Melancholy) and Allegrezza (Cheerfulness) are expressed through subtle musical rhetoric.

Timothy McGee, Music & Letters, February 1989; Clifford Bartlett, Brio, Autumn/Winter 1988; Jerome Roche, Early Music, November 1988; Donna M. Di Grazia, Sixteenth Century Journal