Claudio Monteverdi - Vespro Della Beata Virgine (disk 1)  (44:58)
	01	Deus in auditorium						01:51
	02	Missus est Angelus						00:35
	03	Dixit Dominus						07:05
	04	Nigra sum						03:19
	05	Ave Maria gratia plena						00:40
	06	Laudate pueri Dominum						05:47
	07	Giovanni Paolo Cima: Canzon quarta - La pace						01:35
	08	Ne timeas Maria						00:51
	09	Laetatus sum						06:24
	10	Ercole Pasquini: Toccata						01:46
	11	Dabit ei Dominus						00:46
	12	Nisi Dominus						04:23
	13	Adriano Banchieri: Secondo dialogo						01:10
	14	Ecce ancilla Domini						00:38
	15	Lauda Jerusalem						04:03
	16	Pulchra es						04:05
Claudio Monteverdi - Vespro Della Beata Virgine (disk 2)  (52:44)
	01	Antiphona ad "Ave Maris stella": Ecce virgo concipiet						00:30
	02	Ave Maris stella						09:28
	03	Versicle after "Ave Maris stella": Ave Maria gratia plena						00:15
	04	Antiphona ad Magnificat: Spiritus sanctus in te descendet						00:41
	05	Magnificat I a 7 - Magnificat anima mea						00:34
	06	Magnificat I a 7 - Et exultavit						01:02
	07	Magnificat I a 7 - Quia respexit						01:47
	08	Magnificat I a 7 - Quia fecit						01:08
	09	Magnificat I a 7 - Et misericordia						02:14
	10	Magnificat I a 7 - Fecit potentiam						00:57
	11	Magnificat I a 7 - Deposuit potentes						02:25
	12	Magnificat I a 7 - Esurientes implevit						01:25
	13	Magnificat I a 7 - Suscepit Israel						01:24
	14	Magnificat I a 7 - Sicut locutus est						00:47
	15	Magnificat I a 7 - Gloria Patri et Filio						02:37
	16	Magnificat I a 7 - Sicut erat in principio						01:34
	17	Sonata sopra Sancta Maria						06:39
	18	Post Magnificat: Dominus vobiscum - Deus qui de beatae Mariae virginis						00:59
	19	Ante Duo Seraphim: Dominus vobiscum - Benedicamus Domino						00:47
	20	Duo seraphim						05:41
	21	Fidelium animae						00:16
	22	Organ improvisation						00:48
	23	Audi coelum						08:18
	24	Conclusio: Divinum auxilium						00:28

Recording: Tonbridge, Tonbridge Chape, 11/2005
Executive Producer: Christoph Alder
Recording Producer: Nicholas Parker
Tonmeister (Balance Engineers): Neil Hutchinson and Andrew Hallifax
Editors: Ian Watson and Jenni Whiteside
All recording and editing facilities by Classics Sound Ltd., London
Publisher: King's Music Gmc (Vespers)

Vespers (1610) - Claudio Monteverdi (1567 - 1643)


Monteverdi was born in Cremona, Italy in 1567 at a time when the spiritual values and traditions of Renaissance music were giving way to the more human-centred values of the Baroque age. Indeed, his life and music reflect this profound change in mentality; by his own admission he wrote in two different styles – prima prattica (a Renaissance style of composition using polyphony over a cantus firmus) and seconda prattica (the use of opera-influenced stile recitativo). Monteverdi was a musical prodigy – his first works, Sacrae Cantiunculae, were published when he was 15. He studied with Ingegneri at Cremona cathedral and published several books of madrigals and motets, before being engaged as a string player and later as Maestro di cappella to the court of Vincenzo Gonzaga at Mantua, during which time he studied with Giaches de Wert. During his life, which culminated in his appointment in 1613 as Maestro di cappella at St Mark’s, Venice, he published many examples of secular and religious works including six operas (a newly developing musical form), ballets, nine books of madrigals, numerous motets and masses as well as the famous Marian Vespers.



In 1610, dissatisfied with his work at the Gonzaga court and beset by financial difficulties, Monteverdi travelled to Rome for an audience with Pope Paul V, possibly seeking a bursary for his son. He took with him his own publication of a Mass (Missa ‘In Illo Tempore’) dedicated to Paul V; published in the same volume was a setting of the main movements of the Vespers (five psalms, a Magnificat, and the hymn, Ave maris stella) together with an additional setting of the Magnificat, an opening Toccata (adapted from his earlier opera Orfeo), and five ‘sacred concertos’ for various voices (Nigra sum, Pulchra es, Duo Seraphim, Audi coelum and the Sonata sopra ‘Sancta Maria ora pro nobis’). It is the inclusion of these latter items that has caused considerable debate as to whether the Vespers were ever intended to be performed liturgically with all of these items included. Redlich, for example, regarded the volume to be a loose compilation of pieces for publication rather than an entity.



The Renaissance tradition of Marian Vespers called for the use of appropriate plainsong antiphons to be used in between the psalm settings and before the Magnificat, and no reference to these is found in the first printed edition. Alternative research suggests that Monteverdi fully intended these concertos to be used in place of the plainsong antiphons. The evidence for this is in the strong key relationships between the concertos and the rest of the pieces in the Vespers (whereas the modes of the appropriate antiphons do not relate). Although the words of the concertos do not at first seem to be fitting for the celebration of a feast of the Virgin Mary (two of them are taken from the Song of Solomon, a highly erotic biblical poem), it is known that one of the prevailing allegories at the time was that of the church being seen as the spiritual bridegroom to the soul of Mary; indeed, several other quasi-sacred works of the time (among them Finetti’s O Maria, quae rapis corda hominum – O Mary, who steals the hearts of men) show a surprisingly sensual view of the mother of God. The inclusion of the concertos is also in keeping with Monteverdi’s somewhat dichotomous composing style – the psalms, hymn and Magnificat are all written in his prima prattica, the concertos in the much more modern and operatic seconda prattica. Modern performances often include both the concertos and the plainsong antiphons, but tonight we will be omitting the latter. Tonight’s orchestration and choral partitioning are also intended to follow Monteverdi’s original specifications.


Barry Creasy

Chairman

Collegium Musicum of London



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Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers
Tim Carter in conversation with Paul McCreesh



In 1610, Claudio Monteverdi published his Missa...ac Vespere for feasts of the Blessed Virgin. Its dedication to Pope Paul V and its ambitious scope suggest that the composer was looking to expand his horizons beyond his current position as master of the court chamber music to Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga of Mantua. The Mass, which parodies a motet (“In illo tempore”) by the long-dead Franco-Flemish composer Nicholas Gombert, is in what would have been recognized as an “old” contrapuntal style typical of the musical Renaissance. However, we usually, if perhaps wrongly, tend to associate the Vespers with the flamboyant musical Baroque.

Vespers is the principle evening service of the Office, and in early 17th-century Italy on special feasts it was often celebrated with large-scale music. The format is laid down by the liturgy: an introit, five psalms each framed by a plainsong antiphon, a hymn, and the Magnificat (again framed by an antiphon), plus other versicles and responses. The bigger churches, especially those with significant musical resources, would usually treat Vespers as an opportunity to combine voices and instruments, plainchant with polyphony, and large-scale psalm settings for the cappella with smaller-scale motets for one, two, or three voices, organ music or instrumental sonatas. These motets and sonatas could stand apart or could substitute for one of the two statements of an antiphon; in either case, they provided further opportunity for affective or meditative music. The 1610 print provides the basic materials for such a celebration, if not quite in the manner one might expect.

Monteverdi’s Vespers has also played a significant role in the early-music revival of the past century, often being regarded as a test piece challenging ensembles large and small to prove their mettle. As a result, it has become hard to separate modern myths from early 17th-century realities. Paul McCreesh has a strong sense of both, and a powerful vision of what we might still learn about the greatest piece of sacred music of its time.

TC: You have been performing Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers for almost 25 years. What is it about this piece that keeps you coming back to it?

PMcC: Well, I’m still struck by just how little we know about it. Of course the music itself is breathtaking, but it throws up so many questions. All the big “early music” issues are there: is it a single work or a miscellany, is it written for choir or solo voices, how much should the instruments play? Then there are all those problems with the 1610 print, ranging from typographical errors through ambiguous performance directions to issues of ordering and function. Most of all, however, it is a work that always forces both performers and listeners to challenge preconceptions and to reconsider the music with fresh ears.

In 1951, Leo Schrade hailed Monteverdi as the “creator of modern music”; more recently, we have tended, rather, to place him at the end of the musical Renaissance. Where does Monteverdi sit for you?

For me, Monteverdi looks both backward and forward. As we see with Schoenberg or Webern, one can only be a revolutionary when one truly understands the past. This duality lies at the heart of the Vespers. On the one hand, some of the music harks back to Giaches de Wert and the old sacred school; on the other, there is new-style declamatory music in the most up-to-date manner. Even as Monteverdi advertises his use of old-fashioned plainchant cantus firmi on his title-page, he gives this technique a distinct twist, weaving around the long-note plainsong a rich fabric combining the warp of Renaissance counterpoint with the weft of modern virtuoso writing. And although instruments were not unusual in church – despite our modern misconceptions of the (purely vocal) Palestrina style – they gain an entirely new rhetorical power by virtue of Monteverdi’s dazzling effects.

Take the opening “Deus in adiutorium meum intende... Domine ad adiuvandum”. How often must a Renaissance duke have entered to a fanfare, and sat down to hear his court chapel chant in simple chordal recitation in the manner known as falsobordone. These are two utterly traditional elements, yet Monteverdi superimposes them to electrifying effect. The result is all the more striking because here Monteverdi also reworks music he had provided for the opening of his opera Orfeo (1607). The heraldic significance of such a gesture, which must have truly impressed the Gonzagas, should not be underestimated.

So for you, the 1610 Vespers comes from a Mantuan environment, even though we know we know almost nothing about the circumstances surrounding their composition or first performance (if any).

Yes. Monteverdi may have been advertising his musical skills in order to gain employment elsewhere, and it is surely no coincidence that in 1613 he moved to take up one of the most prestigious musical posts in Italy, as maestro di cappella at the Basilica of St. Mark in Venice. But he was an eminently pragmatic composer and must surely have been writing for the musical resources he had to hand.

Although it would be fascinating to discover more about the occasion(s) for which the Vespers may have been written, or when they might have been performed, we do in fact have a great deal of information about music in Mantua, both at court and in the ducal chapel dedicated to the Gonzaga’s patron saint, St. Barbara. We know that Duke Vincenzo had access to superb musicians: an expert madrigal ensemble; an esteemed vocal cappella; the virtuoso tenors Francesco Rasi and Francesco Campagnolo; some fine violinists (including the brothers Giovan Battista and Orazio Rubini); and a renowned Cremonese wind band led by cornettist Giulio Cesare Bianchi. We also have Orfeo, which is in many ways a sister work to the Vespers; compare the tenor writing in “Possente spirto e formidabil nume” with, say, “Audi coelum” or “Duo Seraphim” (incidentally, the text of the latter has close connections with the Gonzaga veneration of St. Barbara). So I don’t think we are totally in the dark: a work that springs from this tradition must reflect Mantuan personnel, performance practices and preferred musical styles.

Of course there are many who seem intent to create a mythology that the Vespers was created for St. Mark’s in Venice, and no doubt the idea of Monteverdi’s glorious music ricocheting around the fabulous cupolas of the basilica is an attractive one. In fact, the music neither reflects existing Venetian repertories nor anticipates what Monteverdi was to write when he moved there.

There has been some controversy over whether the 1610 Vespers is just a collection of miscellaneous pieces put together for the convenience of publication, or whether it was conceived as a single work. Part of the problem is the motets (called “concerti”) separating the psalms, which do not set the liturgically “correct” texts; another is the question of modal unity. Clearly you view the Vespers as performable within a single service, but what choices have you had to make as a result?

I doubt very much that the Vespers was composed in one sitting, but nevertheless it certainly forms a coherent entity: the title-page of the 1610 print makes that explicit. And there is a very logical order in the print, with the psalms in their correct liturgical sequence, interspersed with the extra-liturgical pieces in the entirely normal printer’s order of ascending number of voices. But while some choose to perform the music as published, I think it is possible to create a far more convincing artistic statement if one reorders the music to take account of contemporary liturgical practice.

For example, Monteverdi’s print concludes with two settings of the Magnificat, one for seven voices and instruments, and a smaller one for six and basso continuo. The larger one is performed most often (as here), in part because it is thought to provide a spectacular conclusion to the work. However, in a Vespers service the Magnificat also has its concluding antiphon, and then (if Vespers were not followed immediately by Compline) there would be a prayer and antiphon to the Blessed Virgin. Ending a performance of the 1610 Vespers with a full-throttle Magnificat may suit our post-Romantic musical sensibilities, but it would certainly not have been the final music heard in a 17th-century service.

There is enough evidence in contemporary documents to suggest that an instrumental piece such as the Sonata sopra “Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis” would be treated as a substitute for the repeated antiphon after the Magnificat (even though it is before the hymn in the 1610 print). Similarly, I prefer to draw upon motets located earlier in the print for additional items following the Magnificat. As many scholars have pointed out, the Trinitarian motet “Duo seraphim” sits uncomfortably in a collection of Vespers music for the Blessed Virgin, and it is unlikely to have replaced a Marian antiphon. “Audi coelum” also seems too elaborate and far too long for its companion psalm “Nisi Dominus”. So, I have moved “Duo Seraphim” toward the end, in place of the “Deo gratias” (where the motet need not have specific reference to the feast being celebrated), and “Audi coelum” is shifted to substitute for the Marian antiphon at the very end of Vespers.

I’m not saying that this is necessarily “correct”, even if it is certainly plausible. Also, I think it a mistake to view the Vespers as a single “work” in the manner of, say, the Brahms Re­quiem. There is some evidence to suggest that Monteverdi performed single movements separately, and those in different formats (for example, “Dixit Dominus” or the hymn “Ave maris stella” without their instrumental ritornellos). However, I do feel that our version offers a more satisfying musical, emotional, and even spiritual experience.

The 1610 Vespers is fraught with practical performance problems such as vocal scoring, instrumentation, ornamentation and transposition of “high-clef” pieces, and proportional relations between sections in different metres. How did you go about solving them?

Books have been written on these subjects. I take a hard line on some issues, such as downward transposition of the high-clef movements (“Lauda Ierusalem” and the Magnificats). When one knows 16th- and 17th-century music in some depth, one cannot accept these movements at written pitch: the voices and, still more, the instruments go far too high for their normal range. Proportions are a far harder issue, and the fact that Monteverdi uses old- and new-style notation within the same collection of pieces does not help; nor do other inconsistencies caused by printing errors, or just by Monteverdi’s being lax. So, we perform many of our triple times with a slower metrical relationship to the duple beat than is usual – I am sure this is a basic norm, even if it feels unusual to our 21st-century ears – although at times the faster relationship seems intended, especially in the more modern sections. I also have strong feelings on matters of instrumentation. Too often conductors, misquoting contemporary theorists such as Michael Praetorius, seek to reorchestrate Monteverdi’s music in elaborate garb. I use instruments only when the composer explicitly writes parts for them. The basic ensemble is that of solo voices with continuo, upon which, from time to time, is grafted the exquisite colour of solo instruments.

Now that you have recorded the 1610 Vespers, are you done with them?

Well, I hope not... I’m sure that 25 years from now I will still be both fascinated with and infuriated by this extraordinary music, just as I was when I was a 20-year-old student who knew nothing much of music before Tchaikovsky. I still don’t know why Monteverdi sets melismas on what seem to be the least interesting words in ‘Dixit Dominus’; I still find the proportional changes in the sonata bafflingly complex; I wonder endlessly about the modal inflections of musica ficta... But how could one ever grow weary of those breathtaking moments when Monteverdi takes us to another world; the mesmerizing ending of “Audi coelum” which seems to sum up the essence of Marian worship; or that sublime moment when those gloriously eloquent cornetts displace the mighty from their seats and the whole world seems to turn on its axis? To tire of this wonderful, timeless masterpiece would be to tire of life!

Tim Carter is the author of Monteverdi’s Musical Theatre (Yale University Press, 2002) and is David G. Frey Distinguished Professor of Music at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.