Tarquinio Merula: Hor ch’è tempo di dormire; Voices of Music with Jennifer Ellis Kampani

Of one the finest songs written for solo voice in the 17th century: Tarquinio Merula’s Canzonetta Spirituale sopra alla nanna, Hor ch’è tempo di dormire (Venice, 1639). Composed over a bass line consisting of only two repeated notes, Merula writes a soaring melodic line, setting a poem in which the Virgin Mary watches her sleeping son and experiences a waking dream about his future. Featuring Jennifer Ellis Kampani, soprano; William Skeen, viola da gamba; David Tayler, archlute, and Hanneke van Proosdij, ba