In the year 1580, Luca Marenzio, then a young man, published his first collection of compositions: Primo libro de’ madrigali a cinque voci. In the sophisticated Roman musical circles of the end of the sixteenth century, it revealed a personality that was able to express the aesthetic requirements of that period with supreme mastery.

Marenzio was born in Coccaglio, near Brescia, around 1553. He moved to Rome at the age of twenty to work in the employment of Cardinal Cristoforo Madruzzo, and was appreciated because of some madrigals of his that were included in anthologies, and because he was a good singer.

Thanks to these first published works, Marenzio won a position of primacy among Italian composers, and his fame soon reached other European countries. In England, notably, several editions of anthologies that included madrigals by Marenzio were published a few years later, and Marenzio’s works were highly admired.

This CD contains an overview of the profane musical genres of the time when Marenzio and his contemporaries were the leading figures.