Fuggì lo spirto, i dì veloci e l'hore

Marco da Gagliano’s Fuggì lo spirto, i dì veloci e l'hore is a secular madrigal for SATTB voices. The music opens with an immediate sense of hurried departure, the upper voices imitative as the text describes how the spirit, days, and hours have fled. Gagliano masterfully depicts the ensuing desolation and torment with rich, chromatic harmony and disjunct melodic lines. The text speaks of sighs, tears, and anguish, and the composer’s setting conveys a profound sense of suffering. The final lines, a plea to God for mercy and correction, are set with increasing harmonic intensity, culminating in a powerful expression of contrition and hope for divine intervention.