Da Vinci Classics
Anna Piroli, Emanuele Petracco, Erato Ensemble, Giacomo Pieracci, Giulia Beatini, Giulia Zaniboni, Guglielmo Buonsanti, Maria Chiara Gallo, Massimo Lombardi
Physical Release: 26 June 2026
Digital Release: 3 July 2026
Erato Ensemble explores Fontanesi’s Les Regrets through madrigals for five, six and eight voices, revealing the changing relationships between poetry, texture and vocal expression.
16.18€
Digital programme · 16 tracks
Track timings refer to the digital edition.
Anna Piroli
Born in Cremona, she focuses on Renaissance and Baroque repertoire and contemporary chamber music.
Her singing training includes a Bachelor’s at the Conservatorio di Milano and both Master's degrees in Performance and Pedagogy at the Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana in Lugano, under the guidance of Luisa Castellani.
She performs with some of the finest European ensembles, such as Jordi Savall and La Capella Reial de Catalunya, Collegium Vocale Gent, Il Pomo d’Oro, La Cetra, La Fonte Musica, RossoPorpora, La Compagnia del Madrigale, Cantando Admont, Schallfeld Ensemble.
She has been entrusted with new music premieres in La Biennale di Venezia, IRCAM in Paris, Kyiv National Opera, Prague National Opera, Opéra de Dijon. She has performed at renowned venues such as Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Barbican Hall, Elbphilharmonie, Philharmonie Essen, Tivoli Vredenburg Utrecht, Teatro Real de Madrid, Teatre del Liceu, Chicago Symphony Orchestr Hall, Montréal Place des Arts and many others.
Emanuele Petracco, after graduating in Physics, in 2019 he begins studying early music with Gemma Bertagnolli at Conservatorio A. Pedrollo in Vicenza, Italy. In 2021 he spends the academic year on Erasmus in Brussels where he works on performance practice and vocal technique with Nicolas Achten. In 2022 he graduates at Conservatorio di Vicenza in Renaissance and Baroque singing. Later he completes his master studies summa cum laude at Conservatorio di Verona, Italy studying with Vincenzo di Donato. He sings as soloist and chorister in Vox Luminis (Lionel Meunier), Scherzi Musicali (Nicolas Achten), Amsterdam Baroque (Ton Koopman), Collegium Vocale Gent (Philippe Herreweghe), Ad Mosam (Huub Ehlens), European Hanseatic Ensemble (Manfred Cordes) and laReverdie (Claudia Caffagni).
Soprano: Anna Piroli, Giulia Zaniboni:
Alto: Maria Chiara Gallo, Giulia Beatini
Tenor: Massimo Lombardi,Emanuele Petracco
Bass: Guglielmo Buonsanti, Giacomo Pieracci
Giacomo Pieracci studied modern and Baroque oboe before devoting himself to operatic singing. He graduated in 2022 with Honors and Special Mention under the guidance of M. Comparato, winning prizes and scholarships. He further refined his training with M. Leoni, G. Lombardi, and A. Caiello, and attended masterclasses with Devia, Bruson, Remigio, and others.
In 2021 he was among the winners of the Teatro Lirico Sperimentale di Spoleto Competition, launching an intense theatrical career. In 2025 he founded the male ensemble Orizzonte Vocale, dedicated to repertoire ranging from early music to the present day, collaborating with composers such as S. Sciarrino, A. Solbiati, F. Gardella, and others. He has performed in major Italian and international theatres and festivals, working with renowned ensembles and conductors including G. Capuano, M. Angius, and M. Gamba, as well as stage directors such as B. Kosky, R. Carsen, and D. Livermore. He has recorded for RAI 5, Tactus, Dynamic, DaVinci, and others.
Giulia Beatini approached music thanks to the experience of polyphonic singing in ensembles, participating in competitions, festivals, and shows in Italy and abroad since she was a child. She graduated in Philosophy with honours (110/110) from the University of Genoa and studied vocal music and chamber music at the Conservatories of Genoa and Turin, with Gloria Scalchi and Erik Battaglia. In 2018, she participated in the 16th International Competition for Chamber Singing Seghizzi, winning the 2nd prize and several special awards, including the "best interpretation of a Lied." In 2020, she obtained the Academic Diploma of the Second Level in Lyrical Singing from the Conservatory of Genoa with honours (110/110) and the publication's dignity.
She has collaborated with Eutopia Ensemble and MDI Ensemble in seasons promoting the spread of contemporary music (Le Strade del Suono, Milano Musica, Musiktheatertage) and has been among the performers of works in the first performances at the International Festival of Contemporary Music of the Biennale di Venezia. She is part of the female vocal quartet Cleantha, with whom she explores the 20th-century polyphonic repertoire, while in a duo with pianist Valentina Messa, she proposes programs that cover chamber music repertoire starting from German Lieder. She deepens the study of early music with Matteo Messori, Alessio Tosi, and Rossana Bertini, and in this field, as a chorister and soloist, she performs with Cappella Augustana, La Compagnia del Madrigale, Cantica Symphonia, La Fonte Musica, Coro Maghini, Coro e Orchestra Ghislieri, Il Pomo d'Oro, Il Canto di Orfeo and Les Musiciens du Prince, Erato Choir, with whom she performs within the most important national and international music seasons and festivals, with artists of the caliber of Cecilia Bartoli and Joyce di Donato, and in some of Europe's most prestigious concert halls, including Teatro alla Scala, Auditorium RAI, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Philharmonie Berlin, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Philharmonie de Paris, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Wiener Konzerthaus, and An der Wien. She has recorded for Glossa, Arcana/Outhere, Deutsche Grammophon, Erato, Brillant, and Apartè.all’interno delle più importanti stagioni e rassegne musicali nazionali e internazionali, con artisti del calibro di Cecilia Bartoli e Joyce di Donato e in alcune delle più prestigiose sale da concerto d’Europa, tra cui Teatro alla Scala, Auditorium RAI, Concertgebow Amsterdam, Philarmonie Berlin, Elbphilarmonie Hamburg, Philarmonie de Paris, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Wiener Konzerthaus, An der Wien.
Ha inciso per Glossa, Arcana/Outhere, Deutsche Grammophon, Erato, Brillant e Apartè.
Giulia Zaniboni is an Italian singer known for her versatility and mastery of a repertoire ranging from classical to contemporary and popular music. A graduate in opera singing from the Conservatory of Parma, she has performed at major festivals such as Wien Modern, Lucerne Festival, Salzburger Festspiele, Milano Musica, Romaeuropa, and Ravenna Festival, collaborating with leading ensembles including Klangforum Wien, Cantando Admont, Sentieri Selvaggi, and mdi ensemble. Her work reflects a strong commitment to contemporary creation, featuring both iconic masterpieces and numerous premieres written for her by emerging composers. She has premiered works by Giovanni Verrando, Anna Sowa, Orazio Sciortino, and Luca Francesconi, and has performed under the baton of Beat Furrer. She also leads masterclasses and seminars on contemporary vocality in various institutions.
Guglielmo Buonsanti started his musical studies Conservatory of Vicenza. After graduating in Musicology at the University of Pavia in Cremona in 2015 he obtained a master's degree in Renaissance and Baroque singing. In April 2016 he completed a master diploma in 'Advanced Vocal Ensemble Studies' (AVES) held by Anthony Rooley and Evelyn Tubb at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel. He regularly works with many ensembles, choirs and orchestras, such as Capella Reial de Catalunya (J. Savall), De labyrintho (W. Testolin), La Cetra Barockorchester & Vokalensemble (A. Marcon), Cantar Lontano (M. Mencoboni), Vox Luminis (L. Meunier), La Compagnia del Madridale (G. Maletto), Odhecaton (P. Da Col), Ensemble Micrologus (P. Bovi), RossoPorpora (W. Testolin), Dramatodia (A. Allegrezza), I Disinvolti (M. Lombardi), Ensemble Correspondances (S. Daucé), La Fonte Musica (M. Pasotti).
Maria Chiara Gallo, mezzo-soprano, was born in Correggio and graduated in singing at the "A. Peri" Conservatory of Reggio Emilia. She earned a master in Baroque Singing in Milan with S. Tedla. She got scholarships from the Teatro Lirico Sperimentale in Spoleto, Academia de Musica Antigua CIMA, Académie Baroque Européenne of Ambronay. She regularly sings with La Capilla Real de Catalunya (J. Savall), Nederlands Kamerkoor (P. Dijkstra), Concerto Italiano (Rinaldo Alessandrini), Zuercher Sing Akademie (F. Helgath), La Fonte Musica (M. Pasotti), Ghislieri Choir (G. Prandi), La Grande Chapelle (A. Recasens). Recent highligts include: recital in Milan for Società del Quartetto, European tours and recordings of madrigals with Rinaldo Alessandrini, tours in Canada, USA and London with Jordi Savall, the role of “Ottavia” in Monteverdi's “Incoronazione di Poppea” in Siracusa with La Venexiana. She graduated in "Foreign languages and literatures" and in "Promotion of Cultural Activities”.
Massimo Lombardi, Trained in Italy and Belgium, Massimo Lombardi is an Italian tenor specialized in Baroque repertoire. He works on a regular basis with some notable early music groups: Vox Luminis, La Compagnia del Madrigale, Concerto Italiano, la Venexiana, il pomo d’oro, La Fonte Musica, La Cetra Vokalensemble, Coro Ghislieri. With these and other ensembles he performed in some of the best European music festivals and venues: Oude Muziek Utrecht, Wiener Konzerthaus, Salzburger Festspiele, Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, BOZAR Bruxelles, MA Bruges, The Lammermuir Festival, Festival Musica Sacra Maastricht, Festival d’Ambronay, Muziekgebouw aan’t IJ, Festival de Beaune. He also performs as a soloist with a repertoire ranging from Italian Seicento to early Romanticism, with a particular fondness for Monteverdi and Bach, often covering the role of evangelist.
He is founder and conductor of «I Disinvolti», dedicated to rediscover unedited Italian music of the XVII century.
He recorded for Arcana, Glossa, Naxos, CPO, Erato Warner, Aparté, Naïve, Da Vinci.
David Fontanesi
David Fontanesi holds a master in History of Medieval Philosophy at University of Padova. He has studied piano with Lucia Lusvardi Gallico and composition with Giorgio Colombo-Taccani and Stefano Chinca. He continued his composition studies with Azio Corghi at Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena and with Mauro Bonifacio at Accademia Romanini in Brescia. His chamber and symphonic works are published by Casa Musicale Sonzogno (Milan) and Da Vinci Publishing (Osaka). In 2014 he published the CD “Chamber Music with Flute”, in 2015 the CD “Intimate Chamber Music” and in 2017 “Orchestral Works” for the label Bongiovanni (Bologna - Italy). In 2018 he published the book “Preludi ad una metafisica della musica contemporanea”, in 2020 the book “Studi e intermezzi sulla musica del ‘900’” and in 2022 the book “Note sigillate” for Zecchini Editore (Varese - Italy). For the label Da Vinci Classics he published the CD’s “The Third Way – Chamber Music & Sonatas for Winds” (2018), “Four Concertos” (2020), “Four Brass Concertos” (2022), “Four Organ Sonatas” (2023) and “Four String Quartets” (2024).
Within the catalogue of David Fontanesi, the number four recurs with the force of an ordering principle. Quartets, sonatas, concertos and poetic cycles are often arranged in groups of four, as though numerical symmetry offered to musical thought a primary guarantee of solidity. This disc carries that tendency a stage further, gathering sixteen madrigals distributed in four nuclei of four pieces each, entrusted to scorings of eight, six, five and again eight voices. The architecture coincides with the poetics. It is the first sign of a writing that seeks measure,…
Within the catalogue of David Fontanesi, the number four recurs with the force of an ordering principle. Quartets, sonatas, concertos and poetic cycles are often arranged in groups of four, as though numerical symmetry offered to musical thought a primary guarantee of solidity. This disc carries that tendency a stage further, gathering sixteen madrigals distributed in four nuclei of four pieces each, entrusted to scorings of eight, six, five and again eight voices. The architecture coincides with the poetics. It is the first sign of a writing that seeks measure, proportion and clarity of articulation, and that finds in dialogue with the past a discipline of invention. Fontanesi has repeatedly affirmed his distance both from the dogmatism of the avant-gardes and from a neo-Romanticism devoid of genuine compositional labour, and has indicated in beauty, counterpoint and the continuity of the Western tradition the cornerstones of his craft. In these pages that position manifests itself with particular clarity, because the composer encounters an author, Joachim Du Bellay, whose writing itself lives by crisis, memory and a conscious confrontation with models. Published upon the return from the Roman sojourn, Les Regrets belong to the moment at which Du Bellay, among the principal figures of the Pléiade and author of the Défense et illustration de la langue française, turns the poetic gesture away from pure classicising imitation and leads it back to lived experience. The collection introduces into the French sonnet the moral diary, court satire, nostalgia for the homeland, the disenchantment of ambition, the need for a language capable of uttering at once the wound of exile and the dignity of song. For Du Bellay, Rome is also an inward laboratory. Hence the continual friction between grandeur and servitude, between the desire for glory and weariness, between poetic ardour and its sudden eclipse. Fontanesi grasps that tension and makes of Les Regrets the very matrix of musical form. The anaphoras, the interrogations, the conceptual turns between quatrains and tercets, the final sententiae, all are translated into procedures of imitation, vertical accretion, suspension and cadential release. The reference to the Renaissance madrigal is explicit, and the language of these scores lives within a present that reopens it. The fundamental principle remains that of adherence to the word, which the Italian tradition of the Cinquecento made exemplary and which the seconda pratica would later radicalise, placing the text at the centre of the sonic order. Fontanesi assimilates that lesson and transfers it into a contemporary horizon. The writing is predominantly syllabic, the imitative entries are often closely spaced, the homorhythmic episodes coincide with the syntactic articulations of the verse, chromaticism intervenes at points of suffering, sarcasm or intense affective concentration. At the same time, the polyphonic web is conceived as harmonic progression, with a clear tonal polarisation within a surface that preserves modal memory. What emerges is a substance of great transparency, in which counterpoint reinforces intelligibility and confers prominence upon it. The first book for eight voices opens the course with a kind of poetic self-portrait. Je ne veux point fouiller au sein de la nature and Je ne veux fueilleter les exemplaires Grecs are sonnets of negative poetics, in which Du Bellay rejects cosmological emphasis, the servile imitation of the Greeks, of Horace, of Petrarch and of Ronsard himself, preferring a more direct manner of writing, bound to the contingencies of living. Fontanesi translates this declaration into a texture of great compactness, in which the eight parts pursue one another and coalesce like successive waves, almost making of verbal anaphora a constructive law. In Las, où est maintenant ce mespris de Fortune ? the memory of former poetic exaltation bends into elegy, whereas Cependant que la Court mes ouvrages lisoit confronts the question of patronage, honour and the dependence of art upon the favour of the powerful. The whole book thus moves between declaration of simplicity, loss of fervour and the public consciousness of poetry. The breadth of the scoring lends to these pieces an almost architectural profile, suited to sonnets that speak of the very destiny of the poetic voice. The madrigals for six voices constitute the contemplative heart of the programme. Here the word of Du Bellay becomes more gathered, more inward, more exposed to a spiritual verticality. N’estant, comme je suis, encore exercité opposes the former saincte fureur to the weight of necessity; France, mère des arts, des armes et des lois transforms nostalgia into one of the loftiest personifications of the homeland in the whole of French Renaissance lyric; Esprit royal raises the discourse into an almost Neoplatonic light; Dans l’enfer de son corps transforms the lexicon of love into penance and redemption. The six-voice scoring favours a median density, less monumental than the eight-voice pieces and more intimate than the five-voice ones, and produces a meditative sonority capable of enveloping the text in an almost choral aura. In these pieces Fontanesi dwells with particular finesse upon the internal cadences, which mark the moral turns of the poetic thought. The polyphony breathes with the verse. More limpid and keen-edged are the madrigals for five voices, which delineate a Du Bellay who is polemical, moral and epigrammatic. Si les larmes servaient de remède au malheur takes up lament only to hollow it out from within, transforming tears into a sterile nourishment of sorrow. Tu ne crains la fureur de ma plume animée belongs to the satirical vein and closes upon the sharp stroke of the pédante, with a directness rendered still more incisive by the homorhythmic writing. On donne les degrés au savant écolier stages the hierarchy of worldly rewards in order to arrive at the bitter realisation that to the poet there falls only the laurel, a lofty yet insufficient symbol. Muse, qui autrefois chantas la verte Olive finally restores the discourse to an elevated encomiastic register, in which the Muse is summoned to a higher flight in order to celebrate princely greatness. In this book the reduction of scoring becomes a dramatic advantage. The lines acquire a sharper profile, the final clauses gather with greater decision, the word receives a direct light. It is the most acute sector of the cycle, the one in which the verbal intelligence of Du Bellay and the constructive lucidity of the composer come together with greatest evidence. The second group for eight voices closes the disc, once more enlarging sonic space and at the same time completing the moral self-portrait of the poet. Bien qu’aux arts d’Apollon le vulgaire n’aspire defends the office of the lyre against the scorn of the world and against the apparent uselessness of an art that procures no wealth; Maintenant je pardonne à la douce fureur makes of verse the ancient error and at the same time the sole medicine; C’était ores, c’était qu’à moi je devais vivre contemplates lost freedom and the winter of age; Ô qu’heureux est celui qui peut passer son aage raises the secluded life, without envy or ambition, to the rank of a model of wisdom. If the first book for eight voices possessed the character of a combative poetics, this second one assumes the tone of an existential reckoning. The harmonic disposition also contributes to the difference. According to the indications given by the composer, the first group of eight voices gravitates towards softer and more shadowed tonal areas, often marked by flats, whereas the second turns towards a clearer radiance, animated by sharps and by an ascending chromaticism. The large vocal body thus allows Fontanesi to pass from peroration to confession without losing compactness. One of the most remarkable traits of the whole cycle is the precision with which the syntax of the sonnet becomes musical syntax. The anaphoras of Du Bellay generate constructions of successive entries, social or moral enumerations are transformed into series of kindred cells, rhetorical questions produce melodic ripples and an increase in density, sententious endings receive more stable chordal dispositions and firmer cadences. Fontanesi does not conceive the text as a surface to be illustrated, but as a logical organism to be articulated. From this derives also the strong unity of the collection, although each group possesses its own colour. The five-voice pieces tend towards incisiveness, the six-voice ones towards meditation, the eight-voice ones towards ample and perorative construction. The difference of scoring corresponds to three different ways of balancing intelligibility and fullness. What results is one of the most coherent undertakings in the recent output of Fontanesi. These madrigals reaffirm the vitality of a genre that history has not relegated to the museum, but has consigned to successive metamorphoses. The composer looks towards the Renaissance within a present horizon. He looks towards counterpoint together with harmonic evidence. He looks towards the poetic word as a living organism, capable of orienting musical time from within. At the centre remains the conviction that music must still speak, persuade, wound and console, and that beauty is not a residue but a form of truth. In Du Bellay he finds an ideal companion, because Les Regrets too are born of a crisis of language, of the function of the poet, of the relationship with society and with memory. This music restores to that crisis a new resonance. It delivers it to a present still capable of hearing the weight of words and the design of voices.
Giuliano Marco Mattioli © 2026
Fontanesi: Four Madrigals for Eight Voices
Erato Ensemble, Massimo Lombardi · Complete
A listening selection from Fontanesi: Les Regrets – Madrigals for Five, Six and Eight Voices · C01186
Selected awards, reviews and interviews. Radio broadcasts and podcasts are listed separately below.
Bresciaoggi
“un ciclo magnifico”
Fertonani praises Fontanesi’s refined counterpoint and the enchanting beauty of Erato Ensemble’s singing. An exceptionally positive print review without a numerical rating. Published in the newspaper’s classical record column.
Audiophile Hi-Fi / GRooVE back
A favourable review of the cycle’s formal balance, clear vocal textures and sensitive interpretation. The review also praises the natural, transparent recording and its balance between the individual voices.
Read the review ↗ - Audiophile Hi-Fi / GRooVE backClicMag
October 2026, no. 152, p. 9.
Read the review ↗ - ClicMag
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