Monteverdi's 1610 Vespers

we're going to be seeing a lot of performances for this 400th anniversary year so this seems like a good time to start a thread for concerts / recordings or generally awed surrender to how beautiful this piece is

his first concertedly religious piece, written when he was nearing 40 after a lifetime of secular composing and looking to shore up a longterm position with the church in Rome, it can come across as a resume proving mastery of every single kind of style of religious choral music to date. but with all those styles crammed into one 90 minute suite, it ends up being a staggering beautiful mashup of 800 years worth of music coming out of a 400 year old time capsule and any hope of staying rational evaporates during the peak moments.

I like the Andrew Parrot / Taverner Consort recording, even though it's basically sacrilege to recommend an English recording of an Italian piece -- it's more about crystalline layers than passionate colors & solos, but the 'Ave Maris Stella' is just IT and the high soprano entrance on the 'Sonata Sopra Sancta Maria', every single time I hear it, it's the same feeling. I also like the Rinaldo Alessandrini & Concerto Italiano, which I bought after hearing their Gesualdo CD. I'm up for any recommendations, I get the feeling that by the end of the year I'm going to own a lot more than just those two recordings.

Playing in SF at Grace Cathedral on April 25th. Anyone else post anything you'd like as the year trudges on, or just check in if you know how much this piece is about

Great writeup. Would you recommend this for a classical novice to cut his teeth?

Hah. Timely. I've stuck on the Vespers all this week. Mainly been playing Paul McCreesh's recent version, which, though beautiful, does not match the Parrott for 'definitiveness', and is slower and lusher. I also sampled the Robert King version (I already had his Monteverdi sacred music volumes) and enjoyed it a lot.

Was this meant to be played straight through as one work? It's a debate. Anyway, yes, it's up there as one of the greatest ever things, but its weird how it has eclipsed Monteverdi's madrigals (if not the operas) which were what he and his contemporaries, and indeed most audiences up until the mid 20c, considered his forte and main achievement.

I would love to hear this this year. Perhaps it'll be done at the proms, in which case I'll be there.

Milton, I'm sure you know that Gardiner's second recording is highly thought of. In case this means anythign to you King's version was voted the 'building a library choice on radio 3.

No one can go wrong with listening to this, Ismael.

Was this meant to be played straight through as one work? It's a debate.

yeah I shouldn't really refer to it as a suite, it was a portfolio, the guy was showing off his range. that's almost certainly why it seems like more of a modern meta-piece, way more activity and breadth than the floaty operas & more vast in scale than the madrigals when you play it with full ensemble

I looked at the 2nd Gardiner once and it seemed like a totally huge rock opera version (relatively), I'll be checking out the amazon samples a little more tomorrow probably

This is a nice reminder to pull this out and listen. I have only the Parrott recording. Last time I played it it knocked me out but I have a weird habit of getting stuck on Beethoven through Bartok and forgetting to listen to Baroque stuff.

Bach's B-Minor Mass is also a 'portfolio' work iirc.

I don't think I've listened to this in... holy christ, 17 years. I should change that since it's one of the pieces that made me really interested in performing renaissance music.

Best performance by a mile:

Jürgen Jürgens conducting, Monteverdi-Chor Hamburg, Concentus Musicus Wien, Rotraud Hansmann, Irmgard Jacobeit, Nigel Rogers, Bert van t'Hoff, Max von Egmond, Jacques Villisech, Knabensolisten der Wiener Sängerknaben. Telefunken 6.35045 FA (1967)

OOP on CD (came out in Teldec's Das Alte Werk series).

Listening inattentively to the BBC Four broadcast of this (Gardiner conducting) (didn't encourage attention, it would switch to pictures of candles).

Funny how the proms break off from the 19th century orchestral (bore)fest to do something like this.

Listened on Radio 3 and had a similar kind of thought - how other it sounded - but tbf I've listened to a fair number of Proms this year and they've been quite eclectic.

Listening to the Alessandrini now. Very fine indeed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96pp4F5ZMY4

A man sick with love
Gave vent to his pain beneath the night sky
And, gazing at them, said:

Looking forward to this: http://www.helsinginjuhlaviikot.fi/en/tapahtuma/monteverdi-maria-vesperit/

Like the Christiar Pluhar recording, brings home the spareness of the work.

Andrew Parrott is my most-played for a year or so. Can't fault it!

np: Selva morale e spirituale, or the Vespers from 1640. Also good.

Specifically this gigantic undertaking by Cantus Colln, you are transfixed, one melody or line after the next with enough chamber-like forces colouring on top.

Don't know enough about it -- I feel like a need a book on Monteverdi, anyone? Both he and Zelenka are my two discoveries of the year.

Latvian Music academy Baroque Orchestra
Performed in meantone pitch a=465 Hz

Sonata Sopra Sancta Maria:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Zp4a8XJwDtU&t=3319

Ave Maris Stella:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Zp4a8XJwDtU&t=3730

this and the Purcell from the weird temperament thread are just want i want to listen to at the moment - (still don't fully hear/comprehend the difference from ET) - such perfect night music tho

there have been a couple of nights where I'd have been fine with music stopping with the Ave Maris Stella. here's the cue for 'Destruction's Our Delight' from that Purcell (the whole performance is great, including the Ligeti at the beginning).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=K0AY9pJm6-w&t=220

the meantone is most audible in the Monteverdi on the brass; most choruses will instinctively sing in just intonation anyway, so the vocal harmonies don't sound exotic in the way it does when the instruments take a run on the scales or the horns hold a long chord.

i had never heard l'orfeo before last night but i'm entirely smitten w/ it. the ritornello in the prologue is so lovely.

l'orfeo is so beautiful, a personal favorite

in particular, act 2 (ahi caso acerbo...) always gives me chills (and often near tears)

There was a programme on it yesterday - as always the music is utterly wonderful although not v good (as usual) about any insight into the music, taking the usual path of biography (the Duke was driving Monteverdi crazy and underpaying him natch). Simon Russell Beale is used as a personality and that's never going to go anywhere.

revisiting this beautiful piece this morning (this recording)

some of the quieter bits (e.g., "concerto: duo seraphim") with organ drone and vocal vibrato are super trippy.