Donna poi che vi piace

Andrea Rota’s Donna poi che vi piace is a secular madrigal for SATTB voices. The music opens with an immediate sense of longing, the voices weaving together in imitative textures that reflect the text’s theme of sweet suffering. The composer crafts intricate polyphony, with lines carefully placed to explore the tension between pain and pleasure. The text speaks of a lover’s willingness to languish for their beloved, finding a strange sweetness even in dying, but also the intense paradox of being kept alive by the very beauty that causes their distress. Rota’s setting captures this emotional complexity, creating a rich and expressive exploration of unrequited or challenging love, perfectly suited for a skilled choir seeking to convey nuanced sentiment through Italian Renaissance part-music.