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"...recommended with fervor." |
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Reviewer: J.
F. Weber Claudio Monteverdi published a collection of his sacred music in 1641 as Selva morale e spirituale, and a further collection appeared posthumously in 1650. Broadly speaking, these psalms, hymns, canticles, and other pieces have gone through three stages on records. Michel Corboz recorded a series of eight LPs (later on CD) drawn from both collections. Then we had a long series of Vespers for one occasion or another, recreating the Office using selections from both books. More recently, we have had several more or less complete presentations of the 1641 publication ( Fanfare 34:4, 34:5), most of which grouped some of the pieces as Vespers. Now we are back to the liturgical-reconstruction approach. For this, Rinaldo Alessandrini has drawn five psalms, a hymn, and a canticle from the 1641 collection to make up a Vespers for the feast of St. Mark. Each psalm is preceded by an antiphon, not in traditional chant but composed by Gianluca Ferrarini (whose music was used at San Marco in this period), and followed by a sonata (by Usper or Buonamente) or a motet (by Gabrieli or Monteverdi) substituting for the antiphon, as we have heard so often. The hymn text for St. Mark is Athleta Christi belliger, set to the music of a hymn in the same meter, Deus tuorum militum II, another familiar practice. Two of the eight voices of the Magnificat, missing in the print, have been reconstructed by Alessandrini. Alessandrini found that San Marco “for obvious reasons [was] not available to us,” although Columbia brought E. Power Biggs and Gregg Smith there in 1968 for Gabrieli sessions and Archiv brought John Eliot Gardiner there for the Vespers of 1610. Instead, he used the basilica of Santa Barbara in Mantua, which had been used by Jordi Savall for his Vespers of 1610. Conveniently, Alessandrini, in the dialogue on the DVD, agrees with Savall and Christophers that the 1610 Vespers was first sung at Santa Barbara. This is a superb execution of a typical Vespers at San Marco, for, as Alessandrini says in the video, he has immersed himself in Monteverdi for 25 years. (The Fanfare Archive shows that he has had plenty of time for other Baroque composers.) The works included in Selva morale are suitable for all classes of feasts, so Alessandrini has chosen the most elaborate settings of each piece for one of the most important feasts of Venice’s liturgical year. His singers and instrumentalists are superb, and the acoustics of the basilica are captured effectively with the sound spread around the room with my surround-sound system. While we have seen Gardiner’s Vespers of 1610 on a DVD from San Marco, I don’t know of any glimpse of Santa Barbara until now, so the film on the bonus disc is welcome. It was made while Alessandrini was recording this disc, but the only work shown in its entirety is the Magnificat. There are views of many parts of the basilica and the palace complex, including the three possible venues for the first performance of L’Orfeo, and a lot of philosophical discussion over dinner about the music of the period (and the food of the period). At just under an hour, this video is quite interesting, even if the conversation goes on too long. The white English subtitles are not accommodated to the white parts of the picture, so parts of them are difficult to read (they also condense some of the conversation). But the DVD is a bonus added to the single CD, so it is a generous gift for the purchaser. Coming from one of the leading Baroque ensemble directors in Italy, this is at least as good as the many previous liturgical reconstructions of Vespers from the Selva morale, so it is recommended with fervor. | |
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