John Eliot Gardiner - MP3 Podcast / Cl. Monteverdi

John Eliot Gardiner:

The first three decades of the 17th century saw intellectual ferment bubbling up across Europe, epitomised by a single generation of visionary artists and scientists, all born in the 1560s or ’70s. Galileo, Kepler, and Bacon spearheaded a scientific and philosophical revolution, while Shakespeare, Caravaggio and Rubens made radical innovations in the arts, as did a pioneer group of women creative artists and interpreters. This constellation of game-changers extended the map of human knowledge, overturned traditional views, and helped usher in the modern world. But why do historians routinely overlook their exact contemporary, the composer Claudio Monteverdi, whose contributions were no less ground-breaking. Bringing his work and its historical context to life with the help of specially recorded musical illustrations and a handpicked team of experts, Sir John Eliot Gardiner guides listeners through an in-depth investigation into the causes of this seismic shift and the development of the early-modern mind.