Paul Van Nevel has made a special recording, this time with the world premiere of a selection of madrigals by Michelangelo Rossi. This composer played a remarkable role in the history of the keyboard toccata, the opera and the madrigal. In the latter he continued where Gesualdo left off, because Rossi's madrigals have an incredible chromaticism. From time to time, almost late romantic harmonies
… arise, something that is almost even more unreal than Gesualdo's 'atonal' sounds. With Rossi we also regularly hear very slow chromatic passages that give his music a much more 'dreamy' atmosphere than Gesualdo's hectic madrigals. Rossi's madrigals are performed absolutely beautifully here under Van Nevel: his approach is more than successful with dramatic music like this one.more