Michael White enjoys the delight of the Vespers and a radical reimagining of Carmen.
To hear Monteverdi’s Vespers of the Blessed Virgin is to see, in your mind’s eye, the brazen splendour of St Mark’s Basilica in Venice where the early 17th-century composer ran the music and where his Vespers probably had their first public performance. But “probably” is the word. Because we’re talking here about one of music history’s unknowns: a score whose origins and purpose remain clouded.
Monteverdi started work at St Mark’s in 1613. The Vespers were written in 1610, when he was still employed by the Gonzaga court in Mantua. But there’s no record of them ever being done in Mantua: the ducal chapel there would probably have found them too challenging. And it isn’t clear whether Monteverdi actually conceived them as a single entity. They might have been intended as a pick-and-mix compendium, advertising the composer’s talents to prospective clients.
