On Sunday, March 15, singers and musicians drawn from Maine’s premier early music ensembles will present a program of music by the Italian Baroque composer Claudio Monteverdi, as well as selections by his contemporaries.

 

The concert entitled “Sweet Laments” features works for period instruments and solo, duet, trio, and quintet vocal arrangements, from the playful “Zefiro Torna, oh di soavi accenti” to the powerful dramatic laments “Lamento d’Arianna” and “Lamento della Ninfa,” as well as the moving duet “Pur ti miro” from Monteverdi's last opera, “Il Coronazione di Poppea.”

 

The program is an encore performance from the 2019 Portland Early Music Festival, of which the Press Herald’s Allan Kozinn wrote “It offered an appealing overview of Monteverdi’s career as a madrigalist ... The singers wove their vocal lines together beautifully, and they were clearly mindful of the passions expressed in the texts of these bittersweet love songs.”