This work is a madrigal for two tenors and continuo. It was published in a collection called Scherzi Musicali ("Musical Jokes"), and although it is sometimes performed as a straightforward dramatic number, it is more often taken as a satire on the conventions of madrigals as expressed in text and music that exaggerate their expressive mannerisms to risible extremes. Most of the music takes place over an ostinato ground bass that moves forward in a gently swinging triple meter. The text begins with a celebration of spring, marked by the return of the West Wind (Zefiro). As the music moves along the voices interact harmonically and contrapuntally, holding forth with some fetchingly extended melismas along the way. Eventually the ostinato breaks off for a metrically free recitative as the singers lament the loneliness that only the speaker of the poem feels while everyone else is so happy. After a while they rejoin the celebration, and the ostinato from the beginning takes us out at the end.

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