This is in some ways an oddly old-fashioned approach to the 1610 Vespers. With a substantial choir and sometimes highly varying orchestration, William Christie creates a warm and glowing sound. Part of his emphasis is on texture and flow, so Monteverdi's often sharp dissonances tend to have a soft edge; and there are some occasionally irrelevant pitches buried in the polyphonic web. He faces the challenge of putting the 'Lauda Jerusalem' and the 'Magnificat' at a pitch standard a fourth lower than the rest (which he has at a modern concert pitch). And that's where the rich orchestration pays its dividends; the resulting almost impossibly low bass lines, particularly in the 'Et misericordia' section of the 'Magnificat', sound clear and lucid with their instrumental doubling.
He also benefits from the splendid low range of the tenors he uses: they manage to make the 'Gloria Patri' section a true climax to the work, and they give the 'Duo Seraphim' perhaps the most convincing performance available anywhere because they're so beautifully matched. Christie prefaces each of the psalms with a chant introit; and he follows the order of the print except in putting 'Duo Seraphim' before the 'Sonata sopra Sancta Maria'.
To fill the gap where Monteverdi put 'Duo Seraphim' he introduces a sonata by Cima, superbly played by a team led by the violinist, François Fernandez; another sonata by Cima separates the 'Lauda Jerusalem' from 'Duo Seraphim'. There's a warmth and generosity here that are undeniably attractive; the movements mentioned go better than anything else available; and everything is done at the level of skill and musicality that we've come to expect from Christie and his group.

...a warmly choral version yet one that achieves almost all its effects through skilled pacing and attention to expressive detail rather than strident volume, with results as fluid and telling as in some huge madrigal.