Gerusalemme Liberata, by Renaissance Italy's greatest poet Torquato Tasso, has inspired numerous composers since its publication in 1581. Countless operas, from the late 17th century onwards, were famously based on the interwoven tales of "strange and unfortunate loves" that form the backbone of his epic narrative, though we tend to forget that the madrigalists of Tasso's own day regularly set short extracts from his poem.

This concert by Italian vocal group La Venexiana presented a sequence of Tasso-inspired madrigals by Monteverdi and his lesser-known, elder contemporary, the Flemish composer Giaches de Wert, who worked in Ferrara, where Tasso was court poet. It was less successful than anticipated, largely because the programme was hampered by a certain sameness of mood.

Tasso's genius lay in his understanding of the vagaries of human sexuality and in the expression of extreme emotion. The madrigalists gravitated towards the outpourings of grief on the part of Tancredi - who accidentally kills his beloved Clorinda - and the sorceress Armida, dumped by her lover Rinaldo for the sake of military duty.

What we experienced was a sequence of laments, broken only by a couple of pieces by Wert, depicting the world enshrouded by night and the unearthly birdsong of Armida's enchanted palace. The points of contrast derived from the differing approaches of the two composers: Gert, resolving protracted dissonances into chordal progressions, contains grief within the bounds of ritual obsequies; Monteverdi's sensual polyphony hints at the mental pain caused by nagging erotic memories. La Venexiana took a while to strike form, with some sagging pitch in the earlier madrigals, but at their best they sang with breathtaking beauty and poise.