Caro soave e desiato bene

This charming Italian madrigal by Giovanni Gastoldi for SATTB voices opens with a plea from a lover to his beloved. The text expresses the pain of separation and the fear that if the beloved delays too long in responding, the lover's heart will be broken and his soul will faint. He begs his dear, sweet, and longed-for treasure, his rare beauty, to help him and release his heart, which has been stolen. He implores her to attend to his desires so that he does not perish. Gastoldi, a prolific composer of secular part-music in the late Renaissance, crafts a setting that captures the emotional urgency of the text.