Fera leggiadra

For madrigal singers, Orazio Vecchi's Fera leggiadra offers a rich exploration of unrequited love. This secular Italian work for SATTB voices captures the intensity of a lover's plea. The text describes a gentle beast, perhaps representing the beloved, who has ensnared the singer's soul with golden threads and wounded his heart with laughing eyes. He laments that his heart will die without her healing touch, caught in love's net. The lover begs his fair enemy, who he surrendered to faithfully, to heal his wounded breast or release him from love's heavy knot, as his heart should not die twice. Vecchi's setting would suit a moment of dramatic reflection during a concert program.