The programme of this concert refers to one incarnation of the Arcadia myth, a hugely influential one in the Italian Renaissance. L’Arcadia was in fact the title of a widely read pastoral novel (mixing prose and poetry) written by the Neapolitan Iacopo Sannazaro: it decisively contributed to inaugurate, at the beginning of the Cinquecento, a renewed and long-lasting international fashion for the pastoral style. The programme imaginatively ties together songs by Marenzio, Monteverdi, Rossi and other masters, weaving a story in four chapters, interspersed with instrumental interludes.