Altro non e

Philippe Verdelot was a composer of French origin who spent much of his career in Italy, becoming a significant figure in the development of the madrigal. This work, Altro non e, is a secular Italian madrigal for five voices (STTTB). The text expresses a powerful sentiment of love as a personal inferno, where the greatest torment is the absence of the beloved, likened to being deprived of the sight of God. The composer uses the lush five-part texture to convey the intensity of this suffering, exploring the pain of separation and the profound longing for reunion with the object of desire, even describing it as tasting hell before death.