Songs of Love & War
Academy of Ancient Music
Laurence Cummings, Ed Lyon, Anna Dennis
Milton Court, 12 February 2026

In a programme that has its roots in the first interaction between a post-grad singing student (tenor, Ed Lyon) and his tutor at the Royal Academy of Music (Laurence Cummings), the Academy of Ancient Music (AAM) presented a programme of Monteverdi’s 1738 Eighth book of madrigals, Madrigali guerrieri et amorosi (Madrigals of Love and War). Lyon had asked to do Monteverdi’s Eighth Book, a request that Cummings wasn’t able to fulfil – until now. Further musical links between Cummings and Lyon also involved soprano Anna Dennis, making for a wonderful vocal pairing for this inspiring concert.

Published around 20 years after the Seventh Book and shortly before Monteverdi’s death, the Eighth Book has the same feel as many other late-career musical offerings in encompassing his musical achievements. It includes a wide range of pieces, in a variety of styles, many pioneering, others dating back 30 years (the ballo dell’ ingrate, composed for a 1608 Gonzaga-Savoy wedding), alongside music in honour of the recently crowned Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinando III, himself a composerm, and the dedicatee of the Book. War was very much to the fore at the time, with the ghastly Thirty Years’ War grinding its way across central Europe. Love was perhaps not so much on the mind of the population devastated by the religious turmoil. Monteverdi seems to recognise this in the fact that his Madrigals of Love, forming the second half of the Eighth book, have a distinctly unsettling underlying mood of dispair.

In a well-planned programme of extracts from the Eight Book, the AAM opened with the Sinfonia to Altri canti d’amor, the singers entering one by one as their respective parts dictated, with Rob Macdonald promoting the “proud and raging Mars” leaving “others to sing of Cupid”. The beautifully hushed opening of the gentler Hor che’l ciel e la terra followed, with its dramatic sequence of rising chromatic slithers in the seconda parte: Così sol d’una chiara fonte viva. The rest of the opening ‘War’ sequence was taken up with the extended Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, with Ed Lyon excelling in the musically complex and virtuosic role as the Narrator, with support from Anna Denis and Rory Carver. I was particularly moved by Anna Denis singing of Amico, hai vinto: io ti perdon (My friend, you have won: I forgive you), which always reminds me of Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem realisation of Wilfred Owen’s poem ‘Strange Meeting’ with its heart-wrenching line: “I am the enemy you killed, my friend”. The War section finished with the Ballo: Movete al mio bel suon le piante snelle, another excellent solo from Ed Lyon with some inventive percussion effects from Joy Smith hitting the soundboard of her harp and Laurence Cummings hitting the wooden underframe of his harpsichord,

Sensibly, the second half opened with Altri canti di Marte, the first piece of the Love section of the Eighth Book, reversing the words of the War opening, leaving others to “sing of Mars”. Vago augelletto che cantando vai ((Pretty little bird, you keep on singing) followed, with Laurence Cummings stepping away from the harpsichord to join the singers to provide the seventh voice. Ed Lyon expressed the pangs of unrequited love in Ninfa che, scalza il piede e sciolto il crine (Nymph, you who happily wander this place barefoot) with its bitter concluding line, “if only, I could see your ungrateful feet … transformed into solid rock”. The gently accompanied Dolcissimo uscignolo was in a much earlier style than the other pieces, and formed an effective prelude to the concluding Nymph’s Lament (Lamento della ninfa) with its Amor, dicea, il cielmirando il piè fermò with Anna Dennis expressing the full emotional intensity of the realisation that her “treacherous man” has a rival lover.

The supporting singers were Danni O’Neill, Ciara Hendrick, Rory Carver and Rob Macdonald, with particularly important contributions from the latter two singers. The principal solo instruments were violinists Bojan Čičić (AAM leader) and Jorge Jimenez, adding excellently ornamented contributions, the rest of the players providing the continuo accompaniments with notable playing from William Carter and Kristina Watt, theorbos, Joy Smith, harp, Alistair Ross, organ and harpsichord, along with Laurence Cummings directing from the harpsichord.

This music clearly meant a great deal to Laurence Cummings, Ed Lyon, and Anna Dennis. This was perhaps best reflected in Cummings’ specific request that Lyon and Dennis encored with Pur ti miro, pur isti godo, the exquisite conclusion of Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea. This sounded very much more fitting as a stand-alone encore than at the conclusion of the depiction of the horrors of Nero’s Rome and the knowledge of what happened to the two lovers months after the events depicted.

I wouldn’t be surprised if we hear more of Monteverdi’s madrigals from Laurence Cummings and the Academy of Ancient Music in years to come.