Editing Claudio Monteverdi (section)

====Eighth book====
{{listen|type=music
 | filename     = Monteverdi - Lamento della Ninfa.ogg
 | title        = Madrigal: "Lamento della Ninfa" from ''Madrigali Guerrieri et Amorosi'' (eighth book)|length=hide
 | description  = Live recording
}}
The eighth book, subtitled ''Madrigali guerrieri, et amorosi&nbsp;...'' ("Madrigals of war and love") is structured in two symmetrical halves, one for "war" and one for "love". Each half begins with a six-voice setting, followed by an equally large-scale Petrarch setting, then a series of duets mainly for tenor voices, and concludes with a theatrical number and a final ballet.<ref name= ChewVenice/> The "war" half contains several items written as tributes to the emperor Ferdinand III, who had succeeded to the Habsburg throne in 1637.<ref name= Gramophone>{{cite web|last= Fenlon|first= Ian|title= Monteverdi Madrigals, Book 8|url= https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/monteverdi-madrigals-book-8|work=[[Gramophone (magazine)|Gramophone]]|access-date= 13 July 2017|archive-date= 31 July 2017|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20170731142514/https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/monteverdi-madrigals-book-8|url-status= live}}</ref> Many of Monteverdi's familiar poets – Strozzi, Rinuccini, Tasso, Marino, Guarini – are represented in the settings.<ref>Whenham (2007) "Catalogue and Index", pp. 331–132</ref>

It is difficult to gauge when many of the pieces were composed, although the ballet ''Mascherata dell' ingrate'' that ends the book dates back to 1608 and the celebration of the Gonzaga-Savoy marriage.<ref name= Gramophone/> The ''Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda'', centrepiece of the "war" settings, had been written and performed in Venice in 1624;<ref>Stevens (1995), p. 229</ref> on its publication in the eighth book, Monteverdi explicitly linked it to his concept of ''concitato genera'' (otherwise ''[[stile concitato]]'' – "aroused style") that would "fittingly imitate the utterance and the accents of a brave man who is engaged in warfare", and implied that since he had originated this style, others had begun to copy it.<ref name= C185>Carter (2007) "The Venetian secular music", p. 185</ref> The work employed for the first time instructions for the use of [[pizzicato]] string chords, and also evocations of fanfares and other sounds of combat.<ref>Wistreich (2007), p. 275</ref>

The critic Andrew Clements describes the eighth book as "a statement of artistic principles and compositional authority", in which Monteverdi "shaped and expanded the madrigal form to accommodate what he wanted to do&nbsp;... the pieces collected in Book Eight make up a treasury of what music in the first half the 17th century could possibly express."<ref>{{cite news|last= Clements|first= Andrew|title= Review: Monteverdi: Madrigals, Book 8, La Venexiana|url= https://www.theguardian.com/music/2005/nov/04/classicalmusicandopera.shopping3|newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|date= 4 November 2005|access-date= 13 July 2017|archive-date= 28 July 2017|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20170728201441/https://www.theguardian.com/music/2005/nov/04/classicalmusicandopera.shopping3|url-status= live}}</ref>