MONTEVERDI - MADRIGALS - NUOVO MADRIGALETTO ITALIANO - UNDER THE DIRECTION OF EMILIO GIANI (NONESUCH)

This shit is deep. This is deep soul. Monteverdi was one of the founding poppas of opera and cantata and he shook up the madrigal form like it was a walk in the park. I wish I had a cleaner copy. I'll have to get on that. Primo Nonesuch classical usually sets me back fifty cents or so. THE WORLD'S GREATEST VALUE FOR YOUR MONEY IS CLASSICAL MUSIC. You can hear hours and hours of the greatest art that man has ever created for, like, five bucks. There isn't a single musician alive who is working on the same high level that Monteverdi was. Sorry. And I LOVE modern music. But it just isn't happening. There was something in the water back then. People were majik. They fought dragons. They knew God personally. People were living in caves and before you knew it they were creating the loftiest and holiest expressions of human emotion that the world has ever known. And not just in Europe. In Japan and China and India and in all kinds of places. They were as close to the cosmos as we are probably ever going to get. And we have rockets! We even managed to make the moon mundane. The moon! How can you fuck up the moon!? We might have to go back to the caves and start over. We lost our place somewhere down the line.