Monteverdi - Vespers - Warner Classics: 2126852 - download

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One of the earliest and best Vesper sets, certainly the prettiest-sounding. The quality of singers, the rising early music stars of their age, is unsurpassed. — BBC Music Magazine, March 2009, 5 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 8th Sep 2008
Catalogue No: 2126852
Label: Warner Classics
Series: Great Recordings of the Century
Length: 2 hours 25 minutes

Gramophone Magazine

Collection Winner

Monteverdi: Vespro della beata Vergine (1610)

Work length1:08:32

$27.30

$35.70

Taverner Choir, Consort and Players (vocal & instrumental ensemble), Rogers Covey-Crump (tenor), Roger Covey-Crump (vocals), Nigel Rogers (vocals), Andrew Parrott (director), Emma Kirkby (soprano), David Thomas (bass), Taverner Players (lead vocals)
Wiener Johann Strauß Orchester, Taverner Consort, Taverner Choir
Andrew Parrott, Willi Boskovsky

Versiculus (Canto gregoriano) - Deus in adiutorium

Track length0:13

$1.30

$1.70

Responsorium - Domine ad adiuvandum me festina

Track length1:53

$1.30

$1.70

Antiphona I (Canto gregoriano) - Assumpta est Maria

Track length0:29

$1.30

$1.70

Psalmus I - Psalmus 109:Dixit Dominus

Track length8:07

$1.30

$1.70

Concerto - nigra sum

Track length3:45

$1.30

$1.70

Antiphona II (Canto gregoriano) Maria Virgo assumpta est

Track length0:42

$1.30

$1.70

Psalmus II - Psalmus 112:Laudate pueri

Track length6:04

$1.30

$1.70

Concerto - Pulchra es

Track length3:42

$1.30

$1.70

Antiphona III (Canto gregoriano) In odorem unguentorum tuorum currimus

Track length0:33

$1.30

$1.70

Psalmus III - Psalmus 121:Laetatus sum

Track length6:54

$1.30

$1.70

Sonata a 2 per violine e violone (Giovanni Paolo Cima)

Track length4:20

$1.30

$1.70

Antiphona IV (Canto gregoriano) Benedicta filia tua Domino

Track length0:38

$1.30

$1.70

Psalmus IV - Psalmus 126:Nisi Dominus

Track length4:55

$1.30

$1.70

Concerto - Audi coelum

Track length7:31

$1.30

$1.70

Antiphona V (Canto gregoriano) Pulchra es et decora, filia Hierusalem

Track length0:37

$1.30

$1.70

Psalmus V - Psalmus 147:Lauda Jerusalem Dominum

Track length4:48

$1.30

$1.70

Sonata 1 3 per violino, cornetto e violone (Giovanni Paolo Cima)

Track length3:17

$1.30

$1.70

Capitulum (Canto gregoriano) - In omnibus requeim quaesivi

Track length0:46

$1.30

$1.70

Hymnus - Ave maris stella

Track length8:12

$1.30

$1.70

Versus et responsorium (Canto gregoriano) - Exaltata est sancta Dei Genitrix

Track length0:31

$1.30

$1.70

Antiphona VI (Canto gregoriano) - Hodie Maria Virgo caelos ascendit

Track length0:35

$1.30

$1.70

Monteverdi: Vespro della Beata Vergine - Magnificat

Work length17:11

$15.60

$20.40

Nigel Rogers (vocals), Rogers Covey-Crump (tenor), Roger Covey-Crump (vocals), Emma Kirkby (soprano), David Thomas (bass), Taverner Players (lead vocals)
Taverner Consort, Taverner Choir
Andrew Parrott

Magnificat

Track length0:49

$1.30

$1.70

Et exultavit

Track length1:12

$1.30

$1.70

Quia respexit

Track length1:43

$1.30

$1.70

Quia fecit

Track length1:08

$1.30

$1.70

Et misericordia

Track length1:49

$1.30

$1.70

Fecit potentiam

Track length1:03

$1.30

$1.70

Deposuit

Track length2:16

$1.30

$1.70

Esurientes

Track length1:13

$1.30

$1.70

Suscepit Israel

Track length1:17

$1.30

$1.70

Sicut locutus

Track length1:04

$1.30

$1.70

Gloria Patri

Track length1:58

$1.30

$1.70

Sicut erat

Track length1:39

$1.30

$1.70

Excerpt, Monteverdi: Vespro della beata Vergine (1610)

Work length19:49

$10.40

$13.60

Rogers Covey-Crump (tenor), Roger Covey-Crump (vocals), Nigel Rogers (vocals), Andrew Parrott (director), Emma Kirkby (soprano), David Thomas (bass), Taverner Players (lead vocals)
Taverner Consort, Taverner Choir
Andrew Parrott

Sonata sopra Sancta Maria

Track length6:22

$1.30

$1.70

Oratio (Canto gregoriano) - Dominus vobiscum

Track length1:09

$1.30

$1.70

Versus (Canto gregoriano) Dominus vobiscum / Benedicamus Domino

Track length0:24

$1.30

$1.70

Concerto - Duo Seraphim

Track length4:53

$1.30

$1.70

Antiphona Beatae Mariae Virginis - Salve Regine

Track length5:14

$1.30

$1.70

Versus et responsorium (Canto gregoriano) - Ora pro nobis

Track length0:22

$1.30

$1.70

Oratio (Canto gregoriano) - Domine vobiscum

Track length1:01

$1.30

$1.70

Conclusio (Canto gregoriano) - Divinum auxilium maneat semper nobiscum

Track length0:24

$1.30

$1.70

Monteverdi: Selva morale e spirituale, Venetia 1640 (1984 Digital Remaster)

Work length21:58

$3.90

$5.10

Taverner Choir, Emma Kirkby (soprano), Taverner Players, David Thomas (bass), Rogers Covey-Crump (tenor), Nigel Rogers (tenor), Roger Covey-Crump (vocals), David Thomas [1]-[3], [5]-[7], [9] (bass), Andrew Parrott (director)
Taverner Consort
Andrew Parrott

Psalmus 109: Dixit Dominus (Secondo) 1 8

Track length8:20

$1.30

$1.70

Psalmus 112: Laudate pueri (secondo) a 5

Track length7:50

$1.30

$1.70

Hymnus: Salve Regina a 3

Track length5:48

$1.30

$1.70

Monteverdi: Magnificat a 8

Work length12:54

$11.70

$15.30

Andrew Parrott/Taverner Choir/Taverner Consort/Taverner Players/Rogers Covey-Crump/David Thomas/Dame Emma Kirkby, Emma Kirkby (soprano), David Thomas (bass), Roger Covey-Crump (vocals), Rogers Covey-Crump (tenor)
Taverner Choir, Taverner Consort
Andrew Parrott

Magnificat

Track length0:41

$1.30

$1.70

Et exultavit

Track length0:39

$1.30

$1.70

Quia respexit

Track length1:16

$1.30

$1.70

Quia fecit

Track length0:41

$1.30

$1.70

Et misericordia

Track length0:52

$1.30

$1.70

Fecit potentiam...Deposuit...Esurientes

Track length3:48

$1.30

$1.70

Suscepit Israel...Sicut locutus

Track length2:53

$1.30

$1.70

Gloria Patri

Track length0:49

$1.30

$1.70

Sicut erat

Track length1:15

$1.30

$1.70

Monteverdi: Jubilet

Work length4:41

$1.30

$1.70

Rogers Covey-Crump (tenor), Roger Covey-Crump (vocals), Nigel Rogers (tenor), Emma Kirkby (soprano), David Thomas [1]-[3], [5]-[7], [9] (bass), Andrew Parrott (director), Taverner Players (lead vocals)
Taverner Consort, Taverner Choir
Andrew Parrott

About
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About

This path-breaking early digital recording of the 1610 Vespers remains a benchmark and a favourite whenever versions of this work come up for consideration.

Andrew Parrott’s starting-point was that the music was written for a Marian Vespers, and is therefore best heard in its liturgical context. So we have the appropriate plainchant antiphon before each psalm, and other chant required by liturgy.

Just as vital was the question of pitch. Parrott was the first conductor to confront, and eventually solve, the problem posed by the apparent higher pitch of the Magnificat and the Lauda Ierusalem. Read correctly, and following a convention that was well understood at the time, the music is here performed a 4th below written pitch. The arguments are arcane but unanswerable. Before Parrott’s example, fully a quarter of the Vespers was always performed in a sort ‘stratospheric scramble’.

Last but not least, this is music in the concertato style, for highly skilled soloists. Here, rather than the anachronistic modern convention that has certain sections ‘full choir’ and only the more intricate passages given to soloists, each part is in general sung by a single voice, as Monteverdi intended. The lines become clearer, the solo voices combine and answer one another with a marvellous flexibility and expressiveness.

The couplings are taken from a 1982 disc of Venetian vesper music, some of which has not reappeared since that first issue.

Awards: FFFF de Télérama, Caecilia Prijs (Belgium)

Reviews

March 2009

One of the earliest and best Vesper sets, certainly the prettiest-sounding. The quality of singers, the rising early music stars of their age, is unsurpassed.

2010

The technical and interpretative problems of the Monteverdi Vespers of 1610 are legion.
Should the entire volume be performed as an entity, or just the psalms, or perhaps a mixture of psalms and motets? Since the vocal lines in the original are heavily ornamented, does this preclude the addition of further embellishment after the manner of contemporary instruction books? Which portions should be sung chorally (and how large should such a 'choir' be?), and which by the soloists? How should the continuo be realised? The central controversy concerns five nonliturgical compositions inserted among the Marian psalms, hymn and 'Magnificat'. These, the sacred concerti described on the title-page as 'suitable for the chapels or private chambers of princes', don't conform textually to any known Marian office but occur in Monteverdi's collection in positions normally occupied by psalm antiphons. Here the concerti are performed as substitutes for the antiphons missing from Monteverdi's collections. One effect is to make this version feel more unified and monumental.
Both physically and emotionally the concerti are presented here as the focal points of the Vespers.
Certainly they're the occasion for some of the most spectacular singing. The essential ingredient is the performance of Nigel Rogers, surely the most accomplished and convincing singer of the early 17th-century Italian virtuoso repertory. He gives persuasive and seemingly effortless performances in three of the concerti in his mellifluous, dramatic yet perfectly controlled manner. In two cases, 'Audi coelum' and 'Duo Seraphim', he's well matched with Andrew King and Joseph Cornwell. 'Pulchra es', sung by Tessa Bonner and Emma Kirkby, seems comparatively rather understated.
One important feature of Andrew Parrott's interpretation is its fundamental conception, historically accurate, of the Vespers as chamber work rather than a 'choral' one. Thus only one instrument is used per part, the harpsichord is employed very sparingly, and the basic continuo group is restricted to organ and chitarrone.
Following the same principle, one voice per part is taken as the norm. The result is a clarity of texture, evident from the opening bars, which allows correct tempos to be used without stifling often intricate rhythmic features.
Another fundamental choice represents something of a novelty. Both 'Lauda Jerusalem' and the 'Magnificat' are transposed down a fourth here, as they should be according to the convention relating to the clef combinations in which they were originally notated. This brings all the vocal parts into the tessitura of the rest of the work, and restores the instruments to their normal ranges. Whether or not the result is less 'exciting' than the version we're used to hearing has only partly to do with questions of musicality. For the rest, one of the lasting virtues of this well-balanced, unobtrusive recording is that it allows us to hear the Vespers sounding something along the lines that Monteverdi intended.

June 2010

...with some of Britain's finest consort singers & instrumentalists involved, and model solo contributions from Emma Kirkby and Nigel Rogers, there is a vocal clarity and beauty here that gives the work a new humanity and intimacy.

Monteverdi - Vespers

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