Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)
Vespers of 1610
The Thirteen, Children’s Chorus of Washington, Dark Horse Consort/Matthew Robertson
rec. 2022, Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in America, Washington DC
Reviewed as a digital download from a press preview
Acis APL53837 [2 CDs: 93]

I expect that for most listeners to this new version of the Monteverdi Vespers, the single overriding issue will be the acoustic in which it was recorded. Taped in the Monastery of the Holy Land in Washington DC, it is very reverberant, presumably to create an appropriately Venetian ecclesiastical ambiance. It is a most relevant aesthetic point. Monteverdi presumably had such a church setting in mind when he wrote the pieces and this recording, more than most, explores the relationship between such a resonant acoustic and the composer’s polyphony. Only John Eliot Gardiner in his 1986 Archive recording dares to explore such a capacious sound space and even then his engineers mike the performers more closely. The most obvious effect of the echo is a pronounced blurring of the lines of the various voices. Monteverdi’s elaborate textures often become an effect – of waves of sound – rather the kind of precision we have grown used to. The overall sound in the bigger choral pieces is of the total experience of entering a Venetian church with all its candles and gilt and echoing, shadowy depths rather than zoning in on individual details of that church’s decoration.

Another result of the choice of acoustic can be heard in the famous opening chorus, after an agreeable heartfelt and Italianate tenor rendition of Deus, in audjutorium. The performers indulge themselves in some very pronounced rallentandos, almost certainly required to make the appropriate rhetorical points whilst contending with such a generous echo. Even if forced upon the performers, I enjoyed the drama of such moments and in no way found them inappropriate. If Monteverdi wrote with such an environment in mind presumably he also took for granted such challenges and these kinds of solutions.

The acoustic presents a different kind of challenge for the listener at home rather sitting in a pew. We have got accustomed to having our cake and eating it too with recordings of this work. Nobody would forgo the St Mark’s processional splendour of the opening but we expect to also hear all the detail. Indeed, we expect the more intimate movements to be recorded in a much smaller kind of room. There is some justification for seeing this work as gathering together of many disparate elements for publication rather than with any view toward a single presentation of all of this music in an ecclesiastical service. The pick and mix approach to acoustic can be justified in these terms. This present recording is as if we are seated in church to celebrate a religious festival, albeit one on the grandest imaginable scale.

In all honesty, my ear never wearied of this much Bruckner like echo. Just when I thought that I really had had enough of it and wanted something sharper and closer, my ear was drawn back to another lovely effect. Most obviously, the numerous echo effects do not need to strain to make their impact but overall there is a sense that this is a good setting for singers to sing very taxing music. The acoustic supports the voices, particularly in the more exposed solo writing, and adds bloom to the sound. The setting of Audi coelum verba mea shows all of these qualities off resplendently especially with the very fine solo singing of Oliver Mercer. Unlike many, very fine, English recordings of this music, these singers are unafraid to give it a bit of operatic passion.

It isn’t just the singers who seem at ease in this acoustic. The brass of the splendid and splendidly named Dark Horse Consort, particularly, glow like mellow old gold caught in the flickering candlelight.

One rather lovely effect is the use of the children’s choir to chant the introductions to the Antiphons. I have no idea if this choice has been taken on an historically informed basis but it adds lustre and variety to proceedings as well as a suitably churchy mood to proceedings. You would never know this was recorded in an Autumnal Washington DC so suffused is it with warm Mediterranean sunlight.

One notable curiosity of this version is the sensible decision to amend the text of “Negra sum sed formosa” (“I am black but comely”)  to “Negra sum et formosa” (“I am black and comely”), not least because the singer, Michele Kennedy, is herself black. Quite apart from that small but important modification, it makes sense to have those words sung by a woman rather than a tenor.

Robertson directs things in a sensible, unfussy manner, intent on keeping the music moving forward. Tempo choices are seldom extreme and there are no dogmatic points to get in the way of the listener’s enjoyment. If I were to describe the prevailing mood it would be relaxed and smiling. I found this a welcome relief after more driven accounts that seem intent on shocking and surprising. The result is a Monteverdi Vespers that didn’t weary me with over-insistent point making as though I were listening to a lecture.

The account of the concluding setting of the Magnificat neatly summarises the virtues of the enterprise: the generous acoustic produces a sense of lengthening shadows at the end of day which the performers meet with a languorous drawing out of Monteverdi’s magical long lines. The choral singing, as it is throughout, is beautifully tuned, ensemble crisp but not excessively regimented, and above all shimmering in loveliness in the monastic air.

There are a lot of good recordings of these Vespers out there and this recording merits a place alongside them provided the highly distinctive acoustic suits one’s tastes. As I got to know this version better, the artistic rationale behind that acoustic became clearer, indeed became an essential feature of its aesthetic view of the work.

David McDade