Il Cor Tristo

The Hilliard Ensemble's discography has concentrated on early and contemporary music, with only minor excursions into the 18th and 19th centuries, and this new disc is true to form. Poetry by Petrarch is the connection point between six madrigals by Bernardo Pisano (1490-1458), a name new to me, the three by Jacques Arcadelt (ca 1507-1568). Pisano and Arcadelt deal with troubled love. Roger Marsh's 2008 Il Cor Tristo sets an encounter from Dante's Inferno in a way that clearly relates to the practices of his musical forebears. But the manner is much more vivid and the style more varied, with particularly effective use of solo narratives. And it also has the advantage that it was specifically written for the Hilliard. The performance is in a different league to those of the earlier works. url.ie/kh67