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International Record Review - (11//2014)
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Naïve
OP30557



Code-barres / Barcode : 0709861305575 (ID452)

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This year Rinaldo Alessandrini and Concerto Italiano, are celebrating the 30th anniversary of their founding – iin Rome in 1984. The CD they've issued to mark the occasion ‑'Trent'anni a Roma' (OP30563) ‑ is an album of highlights from existing recordings selected by Alessandrini. Sadly, there's no background information on the reasons behind his choices ‑ which would have been so revealing ‑ nor anything very specific or interesting written about the genesis of Concerto Italiano itself. We have to make do with a poem, some rather generic stock­taking, and an insipid Chaconne composed by Alessandrini himself. But rather than cough up for this overpriced sampler, let's save our money instead for a new recording: Alessandrini's and Concerto Italiano's triumphant return to Claudio Monteverdi ‑ the composer with whom they grew up, honed their skills and really established their reputation.

For this expensively produced release Alessandrini has assembled a magnificent vespers service ‑ the sort of thing that might have been celebrated at St Mark's, Venice, during Monteverdi's time there. He's drawn principally upon Monteverdi's great collection of church music published in 1640 ‑ the Selva morale e spirituale ‑ though the splendid opening invocation 'Deus in adiutorium' comes from Monteverdi's well‑known Vespers of 1610. Before each of the five psalms there's an appropriate plainsong antiphon sung to the St Mark's (rather than Roman) Rite; instead of repeating the chant after each psalm, which was what usually happened, Alessandrini follows St Mark's practice for Feast Days: substituting motets by Monteverdi and instrumental sonatas by his colleagues (Giovanni Gabrieli, Francesco Usper and Giovanni Battista Buonamente). This is a light‑touch vespers ‑ missing out lots of routine liturgical business and chant, but providing the right context for the main building blocks of the service ‑ the object being to sound more like an act of worship than a straight concert. It does ‑ thanks to the glorious acoustic.

Recording in St Mark's, Venice, itself is not a practical option these days, so instead Concerto Italiano headed off to the Basilica of Santa Barbara in Mantua ‑ where Monteverdi worked immediately before coming to Venice, and where the music of the 1610 Vespers had its origins. The bonus DVD is very welcome here, giving us a tour of the church and an explanation of its perfect acoustic and ideal two‑minute echo which render complex music cogent and detailed yet magnificently sonorous. The DVD, though rather simply spliced together, has complete takes of several works made during the recording process, which makes for fascinating viewing and for understanding where and why the voices and instruments are placed as they are. It was a nice touch to have a scholarly discussion between Alessandrini and his colleagues filmed over an  experimental supper with dishes from a cookbook contemporary with Monteverdi. I've cooked from this book by Bartolomeo Scappi myself, and while some of the flavours

seem thoroughly modern ‑ Scappi pioneered Parmesan ‑ the seasoning in some of the

savoury dishes does strike the modern palette as surprisingly sweet.

While Alessandrini looks distinctly unimpressed by the sixteenth‑century flavours, he's certainly not afraid to season the music. While the bigger psalms and the Magnificat come with a few independent instrumental parts, Alessandrini follows contemporary practice and devises his own instrumental colour schemes. He uses the standard St Mark's line‑up of two violins, two cornettos and four trombones to double vocal lines, and by alternating violins and cornettos on the top parts, he creates the essential elements of dialogue and contrast. A certain amount of idiomatic elaboration and decoration of these instrumental lines is encouraged, especially to heighten major cadential points. Doubling the voices with instruments, in the grand Venetian festal manner, leads to a natural slowing of speeds, and Alessandrini exploits this in all the bigger pieces, especially the Magnificat, where the great ringing tuttis, which divide up the solo verses, progress with a statelier gait than we often hear in modem performances. Alessandrini has also had to knock the Magniflicat into shape for this recording, completing the missing alto and bass parts in exemplary fashion.

The instrumental playing throughout the disc is technically superb and beautifully nuanced, and we get to hear so much more of what the players are doing because they are evenly matched by just one singer per line (singing in up to eight individual parts in the grandest pieces). Helped by the God‑given acoustic, the recorded sound is revealing but rich; the balance between vocal and instrumental forces absolutely ideal. While avoiding the kind of wide-­screen crescendos and dramatic gestures superimposed on Monteverdi by demonstrative conductors like John Eliot Gardiner, Alessandrini finds his expressive clues deeper in the music: responding to the simple battle‑rhythms of Dixit Dominus, amplifying the engaging dialogues in the instrumental sonatas, and matching Monteverdi's exquisite contrapuntal repetitions with long, graduated build‑ups of power ('a progenie in progenies' ‑ 'from generation to generation' ‑ in the Magnificat).

Thirty years ago Alessandrim and Concerto Italiano seemed to spring onto the Baroque scene fully formed; this recording shows just how far they've come since then. Speeds are more discerningly judged; musical structures are better understood;

expressive gestures arise naturally from the music; and Monteverdi benefits most ‑ he's in their blood.                     

 
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