Deh, dove senza me, dolce mia vita

This four-part Italian madrigal by Jacquet de Berchem opens with a tender depiction of a lover's lament. The voices weave together, creating a rich, imitative texture that reflects the sorrow of separation. The text, a secular poem, expresses the pain of being apart from a loved one, comparing the singer's desolation to a lost lamb bleating in the woods, its cries eventually heard by a wolf and lamented in vain by its shepherd. The SAAT voicing allows for a balanced and expressive performance, bringing out the pathos of the words through carefully crafted melodic lines and harmonic interplay.