In full activity in Marche and Veneto in the first decades of the XVIIth century, Barbarino is one of the most interesting composers of the Baroque. He mingles the pleasure of “the marvellous” typical of that time with a streak of witty vitality. The voice must trace out these passions and with musicality alone untie the verbal knots of tangled emotion, it must be ductile and flexible. The voice must brave cascades of falling notes, then master tumultuous twists and flourishes; it must savour the long notes of a chromatic scale, then rush through a declamation of short, rapid figures. Sometimes the singer must lend himself to long passages of honeyed luxuriousness, or to the light, airy, accented rhythms of the canzonetta.

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