32 Monteverdi: grabaciones de las Vísperas

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MIÉRCOLES, 16 DE AGOSTO DE 2017

Monteverdi: Vespro della Beata Vergine (1610 Vespers)

Las razones que impulsaron a Claudio Monteverdi a imprimir las Vespro della Beata Vergine en 1610 permanecen rodeadas de un halo de misterio. Seguramente compuestas en los años anteriores para la corte Gonzaga en Mantua se reunieron en un volumen de presentación para anunciar su capacidad como compositor de música sacra. La intención parece ser de índole laboral y financiera; en todo caso el resultado es tan impreciso en su función litúrgica como sólido y compacto incluso en su variedad estilística.

Constructivamente la obra está gobernada por una lógica canónica, unificadora, progresiva: a partir de un ortodoxo eje estructural de canto gregoriano se suceden un responsorio, cinco salmos, un himno y un Magnificat, entremezclados con sacri concentus (cuatro motetes y una polifonía instrumental) genéricos y válidos para todas las fiestas marianas, entendidos como sustitutos de las antífonas (pertenecientes a los propios, y por tanto cambiantes con cada festividad).

Las Vespro presentan un monumental y demonstrativo compendium de todas las técnicas del así llamado stilo moderno: la combinación de voces e instrumentos, el uso del bajo continuo, el canto solista, la polifonía en pequeños grupos animada por homofonía sobre notas breves, algunas veces inclinado hacia un carácter parlante resultado de la figuraciones silábicas con notas repetidas. Todo ello entretejido con técnicas tradicionales como la polifonía a capella, coros antifonales y falsobordone en los que Monteverdi expone sistemáticamente sus méritos profesionales.

Misterio y milagro, las Vespro son únicas y diferentes de toda la música sacra que Monteverdi compuso. Sin embargo, su reconocimiento no fue unánime: en 1611 un cronista local contaba que unos salmos suyos habían “aburrido a todos hasta las lágrimas”. Quizás fue así, pero en la explotación vocal e instrumental de los colores, en la complejidad de estructuras y texturas, en la diversidad de estilos y técnicas, en la espacialidad de los diferentes conjuntos y solistas como un factor básico, las Vespro della Beata Vergine suponen un inigualado nivel de esplendor musical, mezcla de lo íntimo y lo magnífico, lo sensual y lo sublime. 

Aunque hay grabaciones de las Vísperas desde tan temprano como 1953 hoy parecen todas ellas tan alejadas en letra y espiritu del original de Monteverdi que pasaremos de puntillas por su arbitrareidad e incomprensión, arreglos romanticoides, desviaciones y cambios al texto, ¡el estilo verdiano de Stokowski!... El acercamiento pionero en explorar su relación devocional es el de Denis Stevens, que asumió un adecuado estilo veneciano y cuestionó la necesidad de conjuntos monumentales en su interpretación, si bien erró en su omisión de los sacri concentus, sustituyéndolos por antífonas de cantollano que no representan ningún servicio litúrgico. Stevens combatió con saña el incipiente instrumentarium historicista desde su púlpito en The Grove Enciclopaedia: “they sound like a mouse breaking wind”, asi que no es de extrañar que en su Orchestra de la Accademia Monteverdiana sustituya los cornetti por obóes y añada fagotes al bajo continuo, que al menos tiene una realización aproximada del estilo del S. XVII. Coro considerable (The Ambrosian Singers) pero de declamación comprensible y siete solistas de marcado vibrato, entre los que destaca un joven Nigel Rogers. Tempi lentos y uniformes se arrastran por esta especie de oratorio disfrazado (Vanguard, 1966).

La primera versión en hacernos comprender la estructura litúrgica y estética de las Vespro como unidad indisoluble fue la de Andrew Parrott (Virgin, 1983). Desconfiando de que la impresión de 1610 respetara la intención de Monteverdi, Parrot se siente libre de reedificar el orden de los motetes para llevar a término su reconstrucción, completándola a su correcto parecer e incorporando versos gregorianos, antífonas y sonatas instrumentales da chiesa. Además de utilizar con flexibilidad el Taverner Choir interpreta la mayoría del material con una voz por parte: La claridad intimista lograda por los solistas británicos merma su expresividad y calidez, mientras su acentuación gelatinosa y sus desigualdades (esos trémolos) parecen desfasadas hoy. Las partes corales soportan la rémora de esta austeridad tudor, evitando la puesta en escena veneciana de otros, pero la sinceridad devocional está fuera de toda duda. Parrot resuelve brillantemente la anomalía de las tesituras altas en Lauda Jerusalem y Magnificat al tocar una cuarta más bajo de lo prescrito, una regla musicológica implícita en la notación que hasta la fecha ha sido observada de manera general pero no universal en las siguientes grabaciones.

Jordi Savall devuelve a la obra su aroma mediterráneo (Alia Vox, 1988). Emplea coloridos y fantasiosos contrastes de coro y solistas y dobla instrumentalmente las líneas vocales mientras tempi prudentes y reverenciales procuran una devoción cautelosa y melancólica, más introspectiva que monumental, con sonido da camera a pesar de la nutrida participación de La Capella Reial. Pero destaca sobre todas las demás por su oscuro y poderoso sonido coral, empastado y afinado, de restallante amplitud en el Magnificat. También la contundencia del bajo continuo es pionera en este sentido y la Sonata instrumental aparece sorpresivamente intoxicada de mística bizantina. Savall cree que el núcleo de la obra se estrenó el 25 de marzo de 1610 en la Basílica Palatina de Santa Bárbara para la festividad más importante de la corte Gonzaga y posteriormente fue reconvertido para honrar a la Virgen. La acústica reverberante de dicha capilla mantuana aprovecha los efectos de espacialidad que Savall hace circular y que dos micrófonos omnidireccionales restituyen afrutadamente.

Aunque Monteverdi no obtuvo una de las iglesias mayores de Roma como él hubiera deseado, la publicación de 1610 rindió poco después sus frutos: Su primorosa prova de las Vespro en San Marcos de Venecia le valió para ser elegido como maestro di capella, puesto que ocuparía durante 33 años hasta su fallecimiento. John Eliot Gardiner basa esta relación como marco de su lectura de teatralidad a gran escala (Archiv, 1989): Como se aprecia en el video que también se editó para la ocasión, solistas, coros e instrumentistas se trasladan frecuentemente entre púlpitos, balconadas y cancela, en un concepto esencialmente dramático de atmósfera concertante (lo público y lo privado) sin intentar representar una liturgia, si bien la mezcla de geometría griega con los mosaicos orientales de la basílica posee algo de la ceremonia de un almuecín en su minarete. Respirando fuerza y vitalidad rítmica, dramático y atlético, Gardiner entiende la partitura como un minimun y (apoyado en el registro de pagos a músicos en 1613) acordemente aumenta el grupo instrumental en un largo etcétera. Atención a los metales, cuya elaborada participación es a veces apabullante. La libertad en los tempi, el coro infantil y la gesticulación de algunos solistas son licencias que parecen propias de un teatro religioso pero no tienen base histórica. La virtuosidad coral permite a Gardiner las más contrastadas variaciones dinámicas, la precisión analítica, los efectos espaciales cuidadosamente coreografiados: el Gloria intercambia etéreos arabescos a través de toda la longitud de la basílica mientras los giovani del coro cantan desde el altar. La espaciosa acústica ofrece un panorama fantástico, pero compromete la claridad.

Lejos de la solemnidad y la grandiosidad venecianas se encuentra fondeada la espiritual visión de Konrad Junghänel (DHM, 1994) donde las partes corales se desempeñan también por los solistas (Cantus Cölln), de poco o ningún vibrato. Su moderación expresiva combina perfectamente con la austeridad en el continuo, compuesto de tan solo laúd y órgano. Aunque las Vespro se adaptan maravillosamente a la intimidad protestantista, la palidez emocional y la inteligibilidad del texto, este enfoque norteño deja sin explorar el gusto monteverdiano por el cromatismo y la disonancia. Toma sonora apropiada: precisa y clara, ligera de reverberación.

Entre las aproximaciones dramáticas a gran escala con coro masivo y soporte instrumental robusto podemos situar paralelamente a René Jacobs -con un trabajo vocal excelente pero estático de ritmos (Concerto Vocale, HM, 1995)- y a William Christie, que demuestra su experiencia madrigalísitica con una ornamentación libérrima en las monodias y un bajo continuo de gran definición, especialmente el robusto bajón (Les Arts Florissants, Erato, 1997). Ambos sabores no novedosos ni enteramente desfasados pero superados por el historicismo reciente.

Los interrogantes sobre el origen y organización interna de las Vespro alcanzan un punto álgido en la exégesis debida a Gabriel Garrido: Sembrada de antífonas y reordenadas sus piezas, su lectura está en la línea experimental de Savall de potenciación del bajo continuo, robustez del coro y ligereza de las partes solistas, pero con un matíz más rústico, exultante de luminosa mediterraneidad y urdimbre casi folcklórica. Pulchra est desatada en expresión, lírica al principio y posteriormente declamatoria, con la triple repetición de “me avolare” como un aria a pequeña escala, asumiendo la metáfora de la huida. Hedonismo en la capacidad melódica instrumental, de extraordinaria claridad en Laetatus sum. Tempi impetuosos y madrigalísticos que surcan solistas exaltados y sensuales (K 617, 1999).

Culmen del formato minimalista, Rinaldo Alessandrini desgrana un concepto combativo, a veces un punto desesperado, festivo y casto, transparente, candente en las elásticas fluctuaciones de ritmos, de ornamentación reducida y libremente improvisada, con disonancias que parecen experimentales. Destacan varios momentos de los magníficos solistas, constantemente señalando la relevancia del texto hacia la melodía: como el oscuro tenor que tras la declaración Nigra sum y el importante silencio, enfatiza la contradicción entre negrura y belleza, o como el baritonal vibrato en Audi coelum que sabe subrayar el inteligente eco que propone Monteverdi entre “María” y “maria” (mares, y por extensión la propia Venecia). El continuo de tiorba y órgano ofrece una inaudita presencia barroca, con pífanos subyugando y sacabuches percutiendo. Alessandrini elimina el andamiaje instrumental a los terrenales corales excepto cuando está expresamente indicado. Toma sonora cálida y cercana realizada en el scarpiano Palazzo Farnese (Naïve, 2004).

También a pequeña escala, pero en la línea de ceñida sentimentalidad establecida por Parrott se encuentra la reconstrucción pragmática de Paul McCreesh. Estrictamente a una voz por parte, relegada en la pequeña orquestación a lo prescrito por Monteverdi, McCreesh entronca la obra, o mejor dicho la agrupación de elementos heterogéneros según su criterio, asociándola a la devoción de una capilla mantuana y no al espectáculo veneciano, por lo que reordena de acuerdo a la práctica litúrgica contemporánea. La elección de las proporciones rítmicas es sorprendentemente variada, si bien las secciones lentas lo acusan. Importancia de las dinámicas, escalonadas y analíticas. Resaltan la festiva adaptación vocal de la fanfarria de Orfeo que enlaza los ámbitos sacro y secular que caracteriza la abrupta fusión de estilos de la obra, y la llamada a la oración cual cabrero corso en Et misericordia. El vibrato y los veloces tempi empleados nublan la articulación y embotan la precisión coral del Gabrieli Consort, de fraseo distanciado de lo latino. La toma sonora relega la instrumentalidad en favor de las voces (Archiv, 2005).

Robert King actualizó en 2006 (Hyperion) lo que hoy podemos considerar la visión tradicionalista, quasi-operática y seglar de un Gardiner, en escala y oropeles, ortodoxo en corales (a ocasiones estridentes sus líneas agudas), con un opulento equipo de solistas cuya ejecución vocal roza la perfección (aunque algunos, como en Gardiner, no posean las voces requeridas para el repertorio), a los que se otorga libertad ornamental y que en ningún momento se ven peligrar por aplastamiento de metales. El órgano soporta de manera continua al bajo continuo compacto y retórico del King’s Consort.

Christina Pluhar suele introducir en el repertorio de su conjunto L`Arpeggiata inflexiones jazzísticas y populares. No hay aquí ni sonido ni conceptualización litúrgicos, sino descaradamente madrigalísticos y mundanales: Nigra sum y Pulchra est son indistingibles de canciones amorosas contemporáneas. Rapidísimas improvisaciones, muy teatrales, ardientes y vigorosas, ignorando las cadencias, con ornamentación desenfrenada y a la vez delicada, diferenciando la individualidad de los solistas, cuyos pasajes de coloratura no pretenden ser belcantistas (y a veces zozobran en la urgencia de los tempi), sin intención de empastar sus voces en el coro. Sobresaliente el continuo inventivo y fresco, desde donde dirige la destacada tiorba de Pluhar. Cuando la música antigua llega a ser música contemporánea (Virgin, 2010).

La característica diferenciadora de la lectura de Giuseppe Maletto (Glossa, 2016) es su apuesta por unos tempi lánguidos y gráciles que recuperan la calma de otros tiempos, asi como por el canto legato en contraposición a otras visiones centroeuropeas: por ello las ornamentaciones vocales se limitan a las añadidas por el propio compositor, en las instrumentales se permite cierta libertad en los ritornelli. Añade a los prescritos por Monteverdi otros instrumentos tales como flautas, violone, arpa, viola da gamba, pero solo admite en el continuo el instrumento recetado en el impreso de 1610, un órgano eclesiástico. Diferentes, ricos y lujuriosos planos sonoros que liberan las tensiones de sus líneas secantes y desgarran las disonancias sin temor. Voces madrigalísticas sinceras e impetuosas, quizás no muy religiosas, sí muy venecianas, y de perfecta integración con los instrumentos renacentistas. El propio Maletto hace de tenor solista con espectaculares resultados: Escúchese la sutil atmósfera nocturna del Nigra sum, con particular atención al perfil rítmico, donde en el c. 62 el fa agudo de “veni” crea una profunda disonancia con el bajo, un momento familiar al lenguaje operático monteverdiano que desprende urgencia y patetismo.

This 1989 BBC film reproduces the amazing acoustics of the Basilica di San Marco in Venezia, used as a theatrical set. John Eliot Gardiner introduces in the bonus documentary an interesting and concise discussion of the context of this work, and explains that this music is what convinced him to become not an historian but a musician.

In this truly remarkable 2015 BBC documentary The Genius of Monteverdi’s Vespers Simon Russell Beale travels to Italy to explore the story of the notorious Duke of Mantua and his long-suffering court composer Claudio Monteverdi during the turbulent times of the late Italian Renaissance. Out of the volatile relationship between the duke and the composer came Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610, a major turning point in western music. The Sixteen, led by Harry Christophers, explore some of the radical and beautiful choral music in this dramatic composition.

Monteverdi's Vespers – which recording is best?

Lindsay Kemp
Monday, February 9, 2015

A pillar of Baroque sacred repertoire, Monteverdi’s Vespers is open to countless interpretations on record, as Lindsay Kemp discovers

Monteverdi’s Vespers is an iconic work in more ways than one. For the composer, who published it 400 years ago in 1610, it was a calculated summation of his skill as a writer of sacred music at a time when he most needed to advertise it. Aged 43, and largely known as a madrigalist, he wanted to escape the frustrations of working at the court of the Gonzaga dukes in Mantua and find a new job, ideally at the Papal chapel. In the event, the publication almost certainly helped him gain a prestigious alternative, the post of maestro di cappella at St Mark’s in Venice, which he would keep until his death in 1643.

For us today, however, the work has become one of the great pillars of the Baroque vocal-and-orchestral repertoire, a staple of the living canon that, like Handel’s Messiah or Bach’s B minor Mass, is almost guaranteed to sell out in concert. And this is in spite of the fact that its performance history is relatively short; the first full public performances were in the 1930s and the first recordings in the 1950s, making the Vespers an essentially modern presence. Indeed, its growing familiarity and reputation can be seen as iconic of something that Monteverdi himself would have had difficulty comprehending. For the story of the rise of the Monteverdi Vespers is the story of the post-war early music movement.

Nothing could be more obvious after listening to the nearly 30 performances to have made it onto CD, the earliest from 1966 and the latest from 2007. For indeed much of early music life is here. Many are the threads one could follow in a chronological trawl through five decades of Vespers recordings, including the dramatic improvement in the standard of playing on period instruments, the rediscovery of singing styles and techniques appropriate to the music (including the growth in one-to-a-part vocal ensembles), the fluctuating pull between musicological and artistic concerns (with the occasional entertaining spat between the individuals involved), and the role that recording itself has played in raising the public’s appreciation of early music. Then there is the sense of community: a singer might appear several times (tenors Nigel Rogers, Ian Partridge and John Elwes for instance, or sopranos Maria Cristina Kiehr and Tessa Bonner); the cornett lists are dominated by the names of Jean-Pierre Canihac, Jeremy West, Bruce Dickey and Doron David Sherwin; several husbands conduct their wives; and musicians who have directed their own performances can be found playing in orchestras for others. It all seems to point to one thing: that, in a sense, the Vespers of 1610 is modern-day early music.

The sum of many parts

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the Vespers’ success is that in all likelihood it is not really “a work” at all, and that Monteverdi may well have never heard it performed as one. The 1610 publication was entitled Missa…ac Vespera…cum nonnullis sacris concentibus [Mass and Vespers, with some Sacred Concertos], and while some movements are standard components of Vespers – the Responsorium (“Domine ad adiuvandum”), the five chant-based, polyphonic psalm-settings (“Dixit Dominus”, “Laudate pueri”, “Laetatus sum”, “Nisi Dominus” and “Lauda Jerusalem”), the hymn (“Ave maris stella”) and the Magnificat (of which Monteverdi offered two settings, one in six parts, and the other a seven-part elaboration of it with instruments) – the same cannot be said of the Mass, the sacred concertos “Nigra sum”, “Pulchra es”, “Duo seraphim” and “Audi coelum” (in effect up-to-date early Baroque motets for solo voices and continuo), or the principally instrumental Sonata sopra Sancta Maria. In short, a liturgically correct service cannot be made from the Vespers as it stands, so that it begins to look not so much like a self-contained work as a resource book showcasing pieces in various new and older styles that Monteverdi had composed during his time in Mantua – albeit arranged against the background shape of
a Vespers sequence.

Some scholars have argued that, like the obviously separate Mass, the concertos were added to the publication as a kind of bonus and never intended to form part of the Vespers (Denis Stevens even recorded the work without them in 1966, which is perhaps going a little too far to make a point). A generally accepted view, however, is that, since most set Marian texts, they were intended as permissible substitutes for some of the service’s plainchant antiphons. This conveniently allows them to be included even in those performances that attempt to create a liturgical context by interpolating appropriate chant, even if in those cases considerable reordering and rejigging of items is often necessary. Other performances ignore these problems altogether, however, and simply present the Vespers as it appeared in print.

In the end, though, such matters can be considered secondary for, whether by accident or design, Monteverdi’s ordering of pieces comprises a concert work of about 80 to 90 minutes in length that is perfectly convincing to modern ears. The alternation of solo and choral numbers has the same logic as a Bach or Handel oratorio, and while the long and contemplative Magnificat that ends the work may seem unconventionally ethereal, its two-minute final chorus makes for a stirring conclusion. And nothing can obscure the brilliance, beauty and power of Monteverdi’s music, so full of unforgettable moments – from the neck-tingling splendour of the opening Responsorium to the sensual intimacy of the duetting sopranos in “Pulchra es”, the dizzying virtuosity and exoticism of three tenors in “Duo seraphim” to the wind-down ending of “Laudate pueri”, and the commanding, Orfeo-like tenor roulades of “Audi coelum” to the masterly instrumental composition that is the Sonata sopra Sancta Maria, over which Monteverdi ingeniously lays a chanted soprano prayer, “Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis”.

The recordings

The earliest Vespers currently on CD, dating from 1966, is the first of two by Michel Corboz and his Lausanne forces. The choir is big and warm, the strings are modern and tempi are for the most part reverential and smooth. Yet there is a tenderness here, even a cloistery stillness, that is not to be found in any other version, not even in Corboz’s brighter and more sharply etched second account from 1982.

It is hard to believe that Jürgen Jürgens’s 1967 recording is from the same era. This is the first to use all period instruments (the Vienna Concentus Musicus), the first to add “liturgical” chant and, led by the peerless Nigel Rogers, the first to feature convincingly stylish solo singing. Though the Hamburg Monteverdi Choir is stodgy in places, this is a wise and atmospheric performance, with much of the colour and focus we would expect to hear today.

The first of John Eliot Gardiner’s two recordings, from 1974 (10 years after he conducted the piece in the Monteverdi Choir’s inaugural concert), sounds in many ways more old-fashioned. Modern strings and brass, and the likes of Jill Gomez, Robert Tear, Philip Langridge and John Shirley-Quirk among the soloists, give it a beefy ebullience that is matched by the forceful virtuosity of the choir. But though Gardiner’s purposeful approach is stirringly dramatic, boldly eventful and full of ideas, it is also rhythmically rather rigid, and some of the greater subtleties of other performances are absent.

Hanns-Martin Schneidt’s 1975 recording with the Regensburg Cathedral Choir is the first to use boys’ voices. They bring a brightness to the performance that sits well with the increased technical confidence of the period-instrument playing, and there is some excellent solo singing, including a beautiful, other-worldly countertenor version of “Pulchra es” from Paul Esswood and Kevin Smith. A later account by Heinz Hennig with the Hanover Boys’ Choir (1979) is similar in style but lacks the same polish, leaving Schneidt’s with justifiable claims to be the state-of-the-art Vespers for the 1970s, as Jürgens’s was for the ’60s.

If Jürgens and Schneidt have a 1980s counterpart, it would almost certainly have to be Andrew Parrott’s 1984 recording with the Taverner Consort, which devises a complex liturgical plan involving extra instrumental pieces and the displacement of existing numbers, and, without quite going the whole one-to-a-part hog, makes a decisive move away from large choral sound. The result may have lacked splendour to the ears of those used to what had gone before but with some of Britain’s finest consort singers and 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.

Parrott’s is also the first recording to take note of the musicological discovery that the Magnificat should be sung a fourth lower than its notated pitch. Though this is now almost common practice, many directors were at first reluctant to follow suit, having grown accustomed to enjoying the ethereal change of plane the higher pitch brought to the work’s final 15 minutes. One other early adopter of transpositions, however, was Philippe Herreweghe but though his 1986 performance is typically gentlemanly and sweetly balanced, the soloists are pallid and it has, indeed, a “low-key” feel. Very different, though hardly preferable, is Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s live recording with Vienna Concentus Musicus from the same year, marred by choral singing that is unattractively full-voiced and thumpingly text-led. A flurry of late-1980s recordings was initiated in 1988 by Harry Christophers and The Sixteen in a radical reordering that proposed a new liturgical context for the Vespers as music originally written to honour the Gonzagas’ patron saint, Saint Barbara. Aside from the mild amusement to be had from hearing the “Sancta Marias” of the Sonata transformed into “Sancta Bar-ba-ra”, this is a bright and clean choral performance, freely expressive and forthright in style without being aggressive, and perhaps the most successfully realised meeting between the work and the sound of the modern British professional chorus.

Later that year and the Gonzaga lady was in the frame again, as Jordi Savall and La Capella Reial turned up to record in Mantua’s Santa Barbara Basilica itself. Typically, Savall and his vocal consort and instrumentalists achieve more achingly and lingeringly beautiful moments than anyone else, but at a cost to overall cohesiveness and momentum, especially in an overly drawn-out Magnificat. Worse, his Italian choir is frustratingly weedy.

Three recordings from 1989 effectively summed up the different approaches by now running in parallel. Gardiner’s second, spectacularly recorded live in St Mark’s, has a punchy choral sound, near-operatic solo singing (Bryn Terfel and Alistair Miles are among the basses), emphatic enunciation, big contrasts and deliberate exploitation of the building’s spaces. Its outright theatricality sets it apart from other performances, but may make it a distinctly guilty pleasure for some. Frieder Bernius’s intelligent and agile Stuttgart performance, very much of its time, takes the part-consort, part-choral path. Philip Pickett and the New London Consort, however, are the first to perform the piece one-to-a-part throughout (and with chant and transpositions to boot); their consort sound is less warmly homogeneous than some others but with Catherine Bott and John Mark Ainsley aboard there are compensating moments of individual flexibility and expressiveness.

Both the next two recordings also adopt the strict one-to-a-part approach, though neither is as satisfying an account as Pickett’s. The Scholars, in 1993, are well-intentioned but simply weaker vocally and technically, while in 1994 Konrad Junghänel and Cantus Cölln, despite being technically accomplished and precise in every way (this is the first of several distinguished Vespers appearances by the cornetts and sackbuts of Concerto Palatino), deaden their performance with an unvarying, somewhat instrumental style of singing.

Oddly enough, single-voice performances drop out for the next few years. René Jacobs’s 1995 recording is a sudden return to full-blooded choral singing, supplied by the Netherlands Chamber Choir, robustly buoyed by instrumental doubling. The choir is not the most refined or transparent but Jacobs draws a vibrant and flamboyant performance from them, in which lyrical expression is never forgotten. Interestingly, the vocal lines are largely unadorned but the cornett embellishments are almost balmily florid. There is also a lovely and unhurried “Pulchra es” from Maria Cristina Kiehr and Barbara Borden.

The only all-American Vespers in this survey comes from Martin Pearlman and Boston Baroque in 1997 but unremarkable soloists, untidy ensemble and a rather hollow recorded sound remove it from the serious contenders list. Rather better from that year is the performance by William Christie and Les Arts Florissants, 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. Here, too, are some of the most purely beautiful moments since Savall, not least Paul Agnew’s passionate but poised “Nigra sum” and “Audi coelum”.

The year of 1998 saw a landmark of sorts in the first recording by Italian speakers, even if the Swiss Radio Choir’s concert performance under Diego Fasolis give a rather dull reading hampered by a few too many of the problems associated with a live taping. A similar absence of spark characterises Masaaki Suzuki’s account with the Bach Collegium Japan from 1999; the choir sing with predictable clarity and grace but the soloists are colourless, and in the end there is little sense of atmosphere. In between these two, however, comes a liturgical (and much added-to and reordered) version from Gabriel Garrido and Ensemble Elyma which, while perhaps lacking technical slickness, is nevertheless astutely shaped and firmly directed. It also contains the most freely and naturally expressive “Pulchra es” from Emanuela Galli and Adriana Fernández.

A fascinating alternative view of the work is offered by Peter Seymour’s 2004 recording with the Yorkshire Bach Choir, which takes all Monteverdi’s most austere performance options to leave us without cornetts, sackbuts, strings and, for that matter, the Responsorium and the Sonata. Seymour also opts for the simpler six-part Magnificat but his intelligently pointed choral direction and a fresh-sounding choir ensure that the music retains its interest.

In the meantime, one-to-a-part performances had returned in 2002 with Tragicomedia under Stephen Stubbs but a dry and unforgiving acoustic, as well as the feeling that this is a Vespers more for instrumentalists than singers, make this a hard one to love. A much more exciting account is that of Rinaldo Alessandrini and Concerto Italiano, a fully Italian version at last (in 2004!), and one of the most imaginative for many a year. Like Christie, Alessandrini reveals his experience in madrigals, and though his alertly expressive tempo shifts may offer more jolts than the American’s, they are no less convincing. The consort singing is bold and focused, yet sensitive, but it is a solo that provides eight of the most striking minutes in all of these recordings: a thrillingly full-blooded “Audi coelum” from baritone Pietro Spagnoli that sends shivers down the spine.

Unsurprisingly, Paul McCreesh opts for the liturgical approach in his 2005 recording with the Gabrieli Consort, in which his one-to-a-part reading gains a particular colouring from the use of male falsettists. In fact, though, the consort singing is a touch unincisive and vibrato-affected, and McCreesh’s main achievement lies in some convincing tempo choices (including a slow, processional “Ave maris stella”) and in maintaining the Magnificat’s sense of mystery more than most at lower pitch. After all this, Robert King’s 2006 recording with The King’s Consort is like a blast from a less-complicated past. More than any other version, this one sounds like its director has set out to enjoy himself and forget the musicological baggage. Gleefully choral and revelling in presenting the Vespers as a work of splendour, it benefits from some strong solo singing (notably from Charles Daniels and James Gilchrist).

The last two Vespers recordings both date from 2007. Ralph Allwood’s lively-minded direction shows the youthful agility of the Rodolfus Choir, and sounds attractive in Eton College Chapel’s acoustics, but technical control occasionally falters. Surprisingly this one retains the higher pitch for the Magnificat, and it is interesting how toy-like it now sounds. Most recent is a recording from veteran Sigiswald Kuijken and La Petite Bande – rather an instrumentalist’s version but accomplished nevertheless, in which stately psalms contrast with the flow of the motets and succession of verses in “Ave maris stella”. Not everyone will like the fruity and tootily intrusive organ accompaniments though.

The variety of approaches taken to the Monteverdi Vespers make it difficult to single out a first choice. Some listeners will want added chant, others a one-to-a-part performance; others still may hanker for the high-pitched Magnificat. But had I to pick one above all others, I would want it to be one I could live with but also one that could continue to make me marvel at the music’s many great touches of genius and grace. Christie’s deeply generous and skilled reading does that for me but I will never stop wanting to go back to Andrew Parrott’s recording – a landmark achievement that, for all its scholarliness, still has the power to touch heart, ear and mind.

Outgoing splendour

Concerto Vocale / René Jacobs

John Eliot Gardiner’s explosive second recording takes some beating, and Robert King is eager and spontaneous though less imaginative, but it is René Jacobs’s outgoing and richly doubled performance that perhaps does most both to excite and please the ear. Gramophone review

Exquisite beauty

Les Arts Florissants / William Christie

Jordi Savall’s recording has moments of exquisiteness, but for all-round loveliness, William Christie gives a masterclass in how to handle Baroque choral, solo vocal and instrumental textures to moving effect. Gramophone review

One-to-a-part

Concerto Italiano / Rinaldo Alessandrini

The first fully solo-voice recording was Philip Pickett’s and it is still a revealing and highly recommendable version. Fifteen years later, though, Rinaldo Alessandrini produced one of the most adventurous Vespers to date, one full of ideas that all lovers of the piece should hear. Gramophone review

The top choice

Taverner Consort / Andrew Parrott

Andrew Parrott’s chant-strewn reconstruction may seem to elevate musicological concerns over artistic ones but this is an intensely musical consort version in which fine instrumental playing and solo singing help to add lyric intimacy to a strong sense of atmosphere. Gramophone review

This article originally appeared in the June 2010 issue of Gramophone. 

In 2011 a very fine recording of Monteverdi's Vespers was recorded by L'Arpeggiata and Christine Pluhar. In his review of that recording Lindsay Kemp said, 'Last year I listened to over 30 Vespers for The Gramophone Collection, and this one joins those by Philip Pickett and Rinaldo Alessandrini at the top of the class of colourful versions using solo voices. Few in any category have been more exciting, however, or made my blood course more keenly.' You can read the full Gramophone review of that recording here.

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31 Monteverdi: momentos

 

My favourite Monteverdi moment...

David Vickers     Monday, April 10, 2017

Paul Agnew (Les Arts Florissants)

I was only about 23 when I joined the Consort of Musicke, and it was like a family – I was encouraged and pushed forward, but in the softest and most helpful way. The very first project I did was the recording of the Sixth Book of Madrigals – which is one of the great books, and my first encounter with Lamento d’Arianna, La Sestina, and all those other incredible pieces. It was an amazing shock because the experience was so intellectually stimulating and musically intense. For me, the madrigals are Monteverdi’s workshop - that’s where he builds things and where you really begin to understand what an incredible genius he was. I’m also enormously fond of utterly beautiful little madrigals, such as ‘Baci care e soave’ from the First Book of Madrigals – which is just a lovely little epigram and nothing more – but I wouldn’t want to be without the Lamento d’Arianna because that relationship between the madrigal version and the lament from the otherwise lost opera is absolute proof that the five-part form is Monteverdi’s laboratory.

 

Rinaldo Alessandrini (Concerto Italiano)

The last closing section of ‘Non m'è grave il morire’ from the Second Book is so moving when the text describes a lady weeping, and the music uses the most beautiful falling harmonies to describe her tears. Another fantastic point is in La Sestina in the Sixth Book, the last phrase of the fifth section, “Ah, muse, qui sgorgate il pianto.” This is an incredible moment of really pure emotion. But maybe the most perfect example of theatrical balance and sound chemistry is ‘Hor che’l ciel e la terra’ because the music is not merely a decoration of Petrarch’s poetry but a real illustration of it. When the sonnet ends with the poet saying “tanto dalla salute mia son lunge” – ‘I am so far from the source of my well-being’ – it’s fantastic how the soprano and the bass line start from unison, walk through the complete range, stretching more and still more “far”, with the pulling of dissonance to the biggest possible gap before ending with that beautiful resolution!

 

Catherine Bott (New London Consort)

My first discovery of Monteverdi came as a schoolgirl when I heard the opera that really launched the form as a human drama: L’incoronazione di Poppea. By the time I recorded the part of the goody-goody Drusilla for John Eliot Gardiner, I understood that huge chunks of this sensual piece weren’t by Monteverdi himself, including that famous and slightly creepy love duet – but it remains the work that turned me on to him. When the New London Consort came to record Orfeo for L’Oiseau-Lyre it was a special experience. Peter Wadland was a genius producer, and it was a real feat of imagination to turn Walthamstow Town Hall into an Arcadian grove: my over-riding memory is the exquisite, unforced fluidity of John-Mark Ainsley’s singing in the title-role. But the Monteverdi music that gets me every time is the moment in the Vespers when three become one in the concerto ‘Duo Seraphim’ when the solo tenors sing the line “et hi tres unum sunt”. It’s spiritual and musical perfection.

 

John Eliot Gardiner (The Monteverdi Choir)

My parents took me along to the Bryanston Summer School when I was only seven or eight years old, and I couldn’t even sight-read very well at that point. William Glock came armed with the Malipiero edition of the collected works that had just arrived in the BBC Library, and shelled out copies of madrigal books to Imogen Holst and Nadia Boulanger. I recall hearing the most wonderful extraordinary music. And then we had the records Nadia Boulanger made of Monteverdi, which we played again and again and again at home. And then there was a broadcast of the Vespers on BBC Third Programme from York Minster, conducted by Walter Goehr with the LSO and the Huddersfield Choral Society and Uncle Tom Cobley and all. Things like these obviously made a big impression on me. I don’t think he ever surpassed the Mantuan Vespers, but I’ve most recently became fascinated with Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria; it’s a prodigious work and I’m completely in love with it! In so many ways it’s Shakespearean in its contrast of Town versus Country – it is very much a contest between decadent urban values pitted against rural organic values, summed up by the clash between the faithful shepherd Eumete and the gluttonous parasite Iro. As we can see in several Shakespeare plays, it’s quite clear that Ulisse underlines the truthfulness and integrity of the rural values – not the pastoral in the sense that bergerie takes over in eighteenth-century France, but in a much more like the Forest of Arden.

 

Robert Hollingworth (I Fagiolini)

The Prologue from Orfeo is just the best way to talk about music; it’s the most condensed piece of music I know – it’s like a sort of chef’s distilled jus that started with three pints and by the time he finishes he’s just got a little thimbleful. That is the brilliance of his writing in that prologue – it’s a series of four variations over a bassline that has got every inflection, every turn that you can devise. There’s a danger with early music that it becomes a repository for nice-sounding stuff – you could almost rename the early music movement ‘the nice music movement’, and certainly in England we’re very good at making a nice noise, and not always so great at thinking about the words. So when I Fagiolini did John La Bouchardière’s production The Full Monteverdi it was significant that there was nowhere to hide – there were probably many flaws in the project’s performances, but one thing that happened every night without fail was that the singers meant every word, which meant there was an emotional honesty and a visceral nature in the singers meaning every word.

 

Emma Kirkby (Consort of Musicke and The Taverner Consort, Choir and Players)

‘Ave Maris Stella’ from the 1610 Vespers is so perfect and so moving to perform because of all the variety possible within it. The way we did it in The Taverner Consort meant there were all the solo individual contributions from wonderful colleagues such as Nigel Rogers and Emily van Evera, beautiful instrumental interludes and then the collectiveness when suddenly everyone joins together; the balance of elements is so beautiful. In the same way, the other bit in the Vespers that I love is the ecstatic choral “Omnes” at the end of ‘Audi coelum’. In Monteverdi it’s always very interesting to explore the interface between sacred and secular. There’s not this difference between secular nonsense and religious profundity – you get both together all the time in Italy in that period. During the daytime you could get straight eroticism from the Song of Songs in church, and then in the evening you could get absolutely serious godly music set to secular words in the chamber. Also, if you want to, you can put hugely different interpretations into a madrigal. There was a total difference between our take on ‘Ohimè, se tanto amate’ from Book 4, which we did in the Consort of Musicke as a sort of naughty joke really, and I Fagiolini’s bitter emotional agony and tragedy in their brilliant film The Full Monteverdi – and I think it can be both!

 

Giuseppe Maletto (La Venexiana and La Compagnia del Madrigale)

Two works by Monteverdi have always moved me in a special way. The Second Book of Madrigals is a perfect collection that combines great skill, youthful freshness and joy for life. In each madrigal the music not only deeply adheres to the text, but enriches and sublimates it. You would not believe that this is the work of a twenty year old composer. I’d single out ‘Ecco mormorar l’onde’; after the part where the music describes the sunrise and the awakening of nature, the last sentence in its simplicity becomes a universal message of love that transcends even the inspired poetry of Tasso. The second work that I’m particularly fond of is undoubtedly the Vespers, and not only for musical reasons. For me, the Vespers is a mystery and a miracle; the most original musical creation that exists. It is so unique and different from anything that was ever been written before and or that came afterwards, even Monteverdi’s own Venetian church music. In the Vespers there isn’t one single moment that’s not extraordinary at arousing endless emotions.

 

Andrew Parrott (The Taverner Consort, Choir and Players)

When I heard Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s recording of the Vespers I zeroed in on Nigel Rogers’ contribution, and also the Dutch tenor Marius van Altena – who had a nice, light voice and fluid musicality. They were really the only two people at that time who could do what was needed in the solo tenor parts. Nigel Rogers had a way of expressing this wonderful exuberance and embroidered florid music in a way that seemed right, and his ability to sing fast notes lightly, instead of the customary heavy-handed way most tenors had back then. In fact, when I was a postgraduate at Oxford I started to get asked to sing as a tenor in performances of the Vespers, and on one occasion I said “I’m not going to do it unless you get Nigel Rogers” – and they did! When I came to make my own recording of the Vespers it was an obvious idea to ask him to sing ‘Nigra sum’. He sang it differently in every take, changing his ornaments according to how he felt each time, and they always sounded improvised but all done with a purpose – not just as if filling in a few extra notes in a clichéd way. It’s hard to pick just one example of Monteverdi’s music that’s special, but a powerful example of what makes him different from anyone else is when Orfeo loses Euridice forever towards end of Act IV. Early on in Orfeo all the colours of the instruments and exciting rich music looks after itself fairly easily, but at this point of Orpheus’s desolation Monteverdi dares to reduce it to practically nothing. Everything is stripped back, and it’s very bleak; the musical simplicity is just devastating. It’s the less-is-more principle.

 

Richard Wistreich (Red Byrd and Monteverdi scholar)

I’ve got lots of Monteverdi goosebump moments, and two of them are from the Vespers. I will never forget singing ‘Ave maris stella’ when I was in the choir at King’s College, Cambridge; that was my very first encounter with Monteverdi’s music, and we did one of very earliest recordings of the Vespers to be made in Britain. The outcome now sounds horrendous to me with lots of things you wouldn’t have anymore, like big-voiced soloists singing in nineteenth-century style voices and David Munrow playing the recorder all the way through it. But it was an amazing encounter, and to this day whenever I hear those first four chords of ‘Ave maris stella’ it always brings a tear to my eye. I don’t know why – it’s just so touching. I just think the way the harmony unfolds is extraordinary, and yet it’s Monteverdi at his simplest. And the other example from the Vespers is the Sonata sopra Santa Maria. When I took part in the Vespers project with Andrew Parrott and the Taverners it wasn’t a recording – leading up to the sessions there had been a lot of thinking, concerts, then re-doing it again with different forces, and so on. One of the great things that Andrew did was to bring Bruce Dickey to Britain for the first time, and it was a total revelation to hear the cornetto played in that way. Back in those days instrumentalists were utterly terrified every time they got to the Sonata sopra Sancta Maria in a performance – a bit like how an orchestra might’ve felt about playing The Rite of Spring in the 20s! In the recording sessions I wasn’t singing so I just listened – and suddenly experienced this thrilling sensation at hearing all the changes of tempo judged perfectly and all of the chords from the violins, cornetti and trombones being perfectly in tune!

 

Anthony Rooley (The Consort of Musicke)

When I listen to the very first title on the first Monteverdi recording we did (‘Madrigali erotici’ in 1981), I am still stunned at the power and truth of ‘Con che soavità’ for soprano, strings and continuo. Emma Kirkby sings with her inspiring ‘innocence’ – maybe a little too innocent for our worldlier ears today, but with truthfulness of heart, with strings accompanying as though they too had words! In the mid-80s, we were asked to be resident artists for a new festival devoted to the memory of Luca Marenzio – held at his birth-place, Coccaglio (near Brescia). We were asked to provide the central concert and also to preside as judges for an annual competition for the best emerging vocal ensembles. The first ones to win this event were English! (I Fagiolini – who went on to create their own successes). Later certain Italian singers, some who were involved in La Venexiana in its first days, took the prize – so this Marenzio remembrance did much to invigorate awareness of Italian madrigals. This repertoire demands immense care in preparation – after all this is highly advanced ensemble work, close to what we associate with string-quartet performances – but when I listen to some of our earliest Monteverdi recordings I wonder if something a little more relaxed would be welcome. When we recorded the Sixth Book of Madrigals at Forde Abbey in 1989 we were inspired by Monteverdi’s choice to create an extraordinary five-part madrigal version of his famous solo Lamento d’Arianna – this is surely one of the high-points of Monteverdi’s entire output, and there’s very little in the entire repertory that exceeds its power.