the opening line of a piece by Tarquinio Merula, gives its title and serves as the guiding thread of this program — an illustration of the wide range of emotions that Orpheus expressed through his lyre: desire, hope, tenderness, jubilation, conflict, and despair.

This program reflects our own experiences of love, moving from harmony to tension, from despair to resignation, and then from dissonance back to unison, toward love rediscovered.

This emotional palette unfolds through the works of the greatest composers of the 17^th century, such as Claudio Monteverdi, Giralomo Frescobaldi, Giovanni Sances, Barbara Strozzi, Luigi Rossi, and Tarquinio Merula.

A poetic and contrasting journey, carried by voices and instruments dedicated to the deepest expression of human emotions, as they were sung in Baroque Italy.