Monteverdi: Vespro della Beata Vergine 1610/Venetian Vespers

Claudio Monteverdi (Composer), Andrew Parrott (Conductor), Taverner Consort (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Taverner Consort
• Conductor: Andrew Parrott
• Composer: Claudio Monteverdi
• Audio CD (April 11, 2000)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: EMI Classics
• ASIN: B000031WJB
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #124,416 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Most wonderful version, November 19, 2000

By 

esseyo (Jersey City, NJ United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Monteverdi: Vespro della Beata Vergine 1610/Venetian Vespers (Audio CD)

I first heard this recording in 1991 and I believe it is still one of the very best recordings available. The singing is absolutely wonderful ... the rustic string sounds and the clear voices (no fat wobbles here but no pinched hooting sopranos either). The Vespers is interspersed with chant and convincingly played Cima sonatas. The sound is spacious in the chorus and intimate in the ensemble passages with very little reverberations. An example of the high caliber voices can be heard in the "Duo Seraphim" (the tempo chosen is no sweat for those 3 tenors). With a star-studded ensemble including Emma Kirkby, Nigel Rogers (I love his voice!), Roger Covey-Crump, John Holloway, Bruce Dickey, Lisa Beznosiuk, and members at one time or another of the Tallis Scholar, the Hilliard Ensemble, Academy of Ancient Music, the English Concert; how can one go wrong???? Sorry, this performance doesn't sound like a secular musical orgy. Which is yet another reason why I give it 5 stars.

NOTE: the recording of the Selva Morale e Spirituale is not so great. Don't buy the CD for that ... buy it for the Vespers of 1610.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Easily the best recording of the Vespers, March 12, 2004

By 

Frederick II of Hohenstaufen "Amor et Hilaritas" (right here) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Monteverdi: Vespro della Beata Vergine 1610/Venetian Vespers (Audio CD)

Andrew Parrott's recording is rightly considered by critics and listeners alike as THE recording of Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610. Using minimal forces, the individual voices layering upon one another can be clearly heard, not drowned out into a mass of sound as in many "fuller" recordings. The only other "five-star" recording of the Vespers is the Konrad Junghanel with Cantus Colln.
If I could only own one recording of this work, the Andrew Parrott would me the one.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Let's Compare and Share!, September 24, 2008

By 

Giordano Bruno (Wherever I am, I am.) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Monteverdi: Vespro della Beata Vergine 1610/Venetian Vespers (Audio CD)

Claudio Monteverdi's Vespro della Beata Vergine of 1610 is a monument that straddles the transition from the musical values of the late renaissance and the early baroque like the Colossus of Rhodes, incorporating hugely different elements, from antiphonal chant to prima prattica tenor-structured polyphony to secunda prattica accompanied recitativo and operatic aria, yet achieving the kind of unity represented by holding its listeners spellbound. It is, like the Colossus, one of the Seven Wonders of musical history. It's also one of the most frequently performed works of sacred music in the world, ranking only behind Handel's Messiah and bach's B-minor Mass. Accordingly, there have been dozens of recordings of it, and many of them have been quite fine. To 'carry off' the Vespers, one needs above all two virtuosic cornetto-players, three tenor singers of great vocal agility whose voices match closely, and an acoustic that flatters a well-disciplined chorus capable of the restraint needed for polychoral polyphony. Yes yes, everything else needs to be nearly perfect also. Thus there can never be an absolutely ultimate recording of the Vespers; sections of one will always be better than sections of another.

This performance by conductor Andrew Parrott has long been taken as the standard of overall excellence. It is still the best-selling of all recordings of the Vespers, by a wide margin. And it's very good! I've listened to it with pleasure on three continents. But I'm interested in comparing it with other recordings - most of them more recent. You will soon see that almost every major conductor feels a need to perform the Vespers his way:

Nicholas Harnoncourt, with Concentus Musicus Wien

John Eliot Gardiner, with the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra

Konrad Junghaenel, with Cantus Coelln

Jordi Savall, with La Capella Reial

Philippe Herreweghe, with La Chapelle Royale

Rene Jacobs, with Concerto Vocale

Rinaldo Alessandrini, with Concerto Italiano

Stephen Stubbs, with Tragicomedia and Concerto Palatino

Maasaki Suzuki, with Bach Collegium Japan

Frieder Bernius, with Musica Fiata

There are others, but these are the ones I'm familiar with. All of them are excellent in one way or another, IMHO. What I'd like to do is to invite readers who are thrilled or displeased with any performance of the Vespers - those listed or others - to comment on this review, to say specifically what you admire or dislike about the performances. The result will be, I hope, a kind of round-robin evaluation of the current state of performance and recording. Please don't get off-topic, and please avoid denunciations.