Gravi pene in amor si provan molte

For a Renaissance choir, Gioseffo Guami’s Gravi pene in amor si provan molte offers a secular Italian madrigal exploring the pains of love. The SATTB voicing allows for rich harmonic interplay as the text describes the author’s considerable suffering in love. He asserts that he has experienced the greater part of these sorrows, and has gathered them so effectively that he can speak of them with skill. He insists that whether he says, as he has said before in song or in writing, that one ill is slight and another harsh and fierce, listeners should trust his true judgment.