It began as a result of the work I’d done with other ensembles. After more than ten years of belonging to various baroque groups like the Ricercar Consort, La Symphonie du Marais, and so on, I was ready for a change, despite the fact that I found the work interesting and enjoyed playing with these ensembles. I wanted to stand up for a different aesthetic, another musical point of view. At the same time, I was fascinated with a repertoire that is quite well represented now, but which was not given much attention when I founded Le Poème Harmonique. Goldberg is familiar with late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century repertoires, but your magazine is an exception. Ten or fifteen years ago, the general public’s idea of seventeenth-century musical life extended little further than Lully in France and Monteverdi in Italy. These figures overshadowed other composers and musical traditions that I wanted to bring to light.

Italian music was a major part of your repertoire from the start.

Of course. We championed Bellerofonte Castaldi, a lutenist and composer from Modena. He was atypical in terms of his style, his personality, and his musical life, which was far removed from the princely courts. Then we begain exploring Florentine music through the work of Domenico Belli. He was one of the Florentine musicians commissioned by Cosimo II – others were Peri, Caccini and Gagliano - who established accompanied monody. The radical nature of Belli’s compositions, which his contemporaries seem not to have understood, gave him a special place within this circle. Letters have survived in which he is quite severe with singers who criticised his un-vocal bass lines, his complex melodies. In his opinion they were simply incapable of singing his music. He also occupies an unusual position because of the scarcity of his work. All his compositions were published in 1616, and include a short opera, Orfeo dolente, written as intermedi, a book of arias for one or two voices, and a funeral office.

After Florence, you went on to Rome.