Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers are rightly considered to be one of the greatest monuments of Baroque church music. Stephen Stubbs, with the ensembles Tragicomedia and Concerto Palatino, along with a group of top-notch singers, began to perform the Vespers on a yearly basis at the Pieterskerk in Leiden in 1998. The event developed into a musical capella, something like what Monteverdi must have had at St. Mark’s. The beautiful acoustics of the Pieterskerk, the inspirational "voice" of the great organ there, but most of all the warm atmosphere of a yearly “family” event that included both the musicians and the staff and visitors of the church have created what one might be tempted to call the "Leiden Vespers." This is the wonderful experience that has been captured on this exhilarating CD.