This would appear to be the twentieth recording of Monteverdi's 1610 Vespers. More than that, it is John Eliot Gardiner's second attempt, marking 25 years of the Monteverdi Choir and the passage of 16 years since his famous 1976 Decca recording reissued on CD only five years ago.
The similarities and differences between his two versions are perhaps what one might expect. If the choral contribution to his 1976 record was until now the best available, it is exceeded by the new recording. Nisi Dominius—which may be one of the sternest tests of any choir—comes across with stunning brilliance; and the high point of the entire performance may be in Lauda Jerusalem, where the balance and control provide a truly awesome climax to the sequence of psalms. As before, Gardiner prefers to be extremely free in his tempos, modifying them from moment to moment as the music seems to demand; but it is clear enough that the Gardiner of today is a musician of considerably more taste and judgement than the young man of 1976—as has been increasingly clear from so many of his other recent records.
Nevertheless, this long-heralded record turns out to be something of a disappointment. The trouble seems to lie in its origins as a recording for video. It made very good television: the archictecture of St Mark's, Venice, was used to spectacular advantage, with singers and their accompanists isolated at some distance from the main choir and orchestra. But on record one hardly hears it that way: the soloists just sound muffled; and remarkably often they also sound tentative, as though straining to hear their pitch from a distantly placed organ. There are concomitant problems of ensemble in the solo sections, distressingly so in a performance that in every other way shows the most scrupulous and extensive preparation. That is to say that it is at the same time both amazingly slick and amazingly chaotic.
You can hear what is missing in the smaller of the two Magnificat settings, which is added on to the end of the record as though as an afterthought. This is recorded in All Saints' Church, Tooting, and has all the clarity, force and impact that the remainder seems to lack. Only here, for
example, is it truly possible to admire the soloists: in St Mark's their sound is covered and the tenors sound well below their best form.
As for the competition, Andrew Parrott (EMI) stands as the finest exponent of everything that is opposed to Gardiner. By using solo singers for most of the time he renders miraculously unnecessary Gardiner's elaborate and sometimes obtrusive 'orchestration' (with brass instruments too often blaring away on the plainchant lines). He uses what now seems unavoidably the correct pitch relationship between the sections, rejected out of hand by Gardiner. More controversially, he re-sequences everything to fit in with a particular view of early seventeenth-century liturgy. (I am inclined to agree with much of what Gardiner has to say about this last point in his notes, while at the same time regretting his dismissive manner of expression.)
More in line with Gardiner's approach are the recordings of Jordi Savall on Deutsche Harmonia Mundi/BMG (made in Santa Barbara, Mantua, for which the music was presumably composed) and of Michel Corboz in 1983 (Erato—nla). Both have their drawbacks; but they show none of the signs of discomfort audible here. On balance I still find that Corboz gives the most rounded version and await its reissue with impatience.'