Una poesia muta: Art in early Cinquecento Venice

Una poesia muta: Art in early Cinquecento Venice

Una poesia muta: Art in early Cinquecento Venice is the result of a collaboration between SWR radio, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart and The Marian Consort. Specially curated by the Stuttgart museum, Germany's first ever exhibition devoted to Vittore Carpaccio and his contemporaries has inspired The Marian Consort to devise an album to accompany this artistic journey. Being one of the most prominent painters of the Early Renaissance in Venice, Carpaccio is likely to have been acquainted with the music and the composers recorded here, since all have strong links to the city at that time. If some of them are well-known today - Josquin, Jean Mouton, Adrian Willaert - others deserve wider recognition. The Marian Consort and it's director Rory McCleery have assembled a typically fascinating programme, matched with superb singing.

Find out more about the exhibition here.

Reviews

Una poesia muta: Art in Early Cinquecento Venice
(Linn Records, 2025)

BBC Radio 3 – Record of the Week

“Given that it has been made by Rory McCleery and his Marian Consort, it works beautifully as a musical experience in its own right. They have designed a captivating sequence … everything sung with characteristic warmth and musicality. If you can’t make it to the exhibition, this album will transport you there.”

De Standaard – ★★★★★

“The Marian Consort is not just any ensemble — they surpass all expectations. Their pure, precise approach, with voices stripped to their wondrous essence (no vibrato, maximum impact!), serves the radical counterpoint of Franco-Flemish and Italian polyphonists perfectly. Even the booklet is state of the art — the kind of detail that makes our Renaissance hearts beat faster.”

Scherzo (Spain)

“The disc is a gem, from its conception — the close relationship between painting and music in such a precise spatial, temporal and cultural context is most interesting — to its performance. The voices sound dense yet delicate, precise in sonority and intonation, and beautifully blended.”

Fono Forum (Germany)

“The Marian Consort, which last year received the German Record Critics’ Award, performs with perfect precision. With a lean tone and refined intonation, they succeed in translating part of the atmosphere contained within the paintings into sound.”

Ö1 (Austria)

“Rory McCleery and The Marian Consort shape a dialogue between music and painting that feels natural and illuminating — a finely balanced programme of sacred and secular works, performed with their trademark elegance and expressive warmth.”