MONTEVERDI Marienvesper
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Claudio Monteverdi
Genre:
Vocal
Label: Carus
Magazine Review Date: 02/2015
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 80
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: CARUS83 394
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Vespro della Beata Vergine, 'Vespers' |
Claudio Monteverdi, Composer
Claudio Monteverdi, Composer Ensemble Amarcord Lautten Compagney Wolfgang Katschner, Conductor |
Author: Lindsay Kemp
The small-scale forces used here – 10 solo voices and the minimum number of instruments (though some play discreetly in places where not specifically requested) – probably help it to be so light on its feet, and allow for clarity of texture and beauty of line, too, wonderfully captured in the controlled resonance of a hardish church acoustic. This is an intimate Vespers, not given to huge drama or massive presence, and one in which the most striking gestures – the gentle, simple Amen at the end of a cheerfully forward-moving ‘Dixit Dominus’, a hushed ‘qui habitare’ section in ‘Laudate pueri’ and a brisk Amen at the end of the Magnificat – take it in the direction of inner calm.
Katschner opts for the higher-key version of the ‘Lauda Jerusalem’ and Magnificat, purely as a matter of personal taste it seems, though to my mind it gives the cornetts and violins an unpleasantly toy-like sound, and given that the pitch is already A=465 throws quite a throaty challenge to the sopranos. The soloists, not individually identified but presumably the core members of Amarcord, are competent without being particularly characterful. ‘Duo Seraphim’, so meltingly exotic sometimes, is here rather matter-of-fact.
An honest, well-thought and well-executed Vespers with interesting things of its own to say, if not really a first recommendation.
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