Credete voi ch'i' viva

Scipione Dentice's Credete voi ch'i' viva is a secular Italian madrigal for SATTB choir. The music opens with a sense of yearning, reflecting the text's profound emotional turmoil. The composer masterfully depicts the speaker's paradoxical state of being kept alive by the very thought of love, yet simultaneously dying from its absence. The interplay between the four vocal lines vividly portrays this inner conflict, moving from moments of sweet contemplation to anguish. Giovanni Battista Guarini's poetry, set here with great sensitivity, explores the painful paradox of finding sustenance in the thought of love, only to be plunged into despair when that love is unattainable, highlighting the consuming nature of unrequited or distant affection.