TENET Vocal Artists, NYC’s pre-eminent early music ensemble, releases a CD of the final performance of its Green Mountain Project. For the past ten years, the Green Mountain Project has been made up of some of the best Baroque specialists in the United States for concerts of Claudio Monteverdi’s iconic Vespers of 1610 (Vespro della Beata Vergine). This live recording is a culmination of years of musical collaborations, and a celebration of the artists and supporters who made the past decade of performances possible.
| # | Audio | Title/Composer(s) | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total Time | 89:58 | ||
Vespers of 1610 |
|||
| 01 | Deus in adiutorium/Domine ad adiuvandum (Versicle & Response) | Deus in adiutorium/Domine ad adiuvandum (Versicle & Response) | 2:17 |
| 02 | Dixit Dominus (Psalm 109) | Dixit Dominus (Psalm 109) | 8:26 |
| 03 | Nigra sum (Motet for one voice) | Nigra sum (Motet for one voice) | 3:48 |
| 04 | Laudate pueri (Psalm 112) | Laudate pueri (Psalm 112) | 6:38 |
| 05 | Pulchra es (Motet for two voices) | Pulchra es (Motet for two voices) | 4:02 |
| 06 | Laetatus sum (Psalm 121) | Laetatus sum (Psalm 121) | 7:12 |
| 07 | Duo seraphim (Motet for three voices) | Duo seraphim (Motet for three voices) | 6:25 |
| 08 | Nisi Dominus (Psalm 126) | Nisi Dominus (Psalm 126) | 4:55 |
| 09 | Audi coelum (Motet for one voice, and at the end for six voices) | Audi coelum (Motet for one voice, and at the end for six voices) | 8:23 |
| 10 | Lauda Jerusalem (Psalm 147) | Lauda Jerusalem (Psalm 147) | 4:28 |
| 11 | Sonata sopra Sancta Maria ora pro nobis | Sonata sopra Sancta Maria ora pro nobis | 6:58 |
| 12 | Ave maris stella (Hymn) | Ave maris stella (Hymn) | 7:35 |
| 13 | Magnificat | Magnificat | 0:47 |
| 14 | Et exultavit | Et exultavit | 1:20 |
| 15 | Quia respexit | Quia respexit | 1:48 |
| 16 | Quia fecit | Quia fecit | 1:19 |
| 17 | Et misericordia | Et misericordia | 1:49 |
| 18 | Fecit potentiam | Fecit potentiam | 0:58 |
| 19 | Deposuit potentes | Deposuit potentes | 2:22 |
| 20 | Esurientes | Esurientes | 1:22 |
| 21 | Suscepit Israel | Suscepit Israel | 1:15 |
| 22 | Sicut locutus est | Sicut locutus est | 0:56 |
| 23 | Gloria Patri | Gloria Patri | 2:33 |
| 24 | Sicut erat in principio | Sicut erat in principio | 2:22 |
In 1610 Claudio Monteverdi was 43 years old and had long been employed at the Gonzaga court in the northern Italian city of Mantua, where he was overworked, underpaid, and unhappy. Monteverdi had good reason to think that he was one of the greatest musicians of the age and he was eager to find stable employment in a more welcoming and more salubrious environment. While there is no proof, many scholars believe that the great publication of 1610 from which TENET’s performance of the Vespers is drawn represents Monteverdi’s bid for a job working for the Pope at the Vatican.
Monteverdi’s 1610 collection supplies polyphonic settings of the Mass, the Vespers response, all five psalms required for Vespers on a Marian feast, the Marian hymn Ave maris stella, and two versions of the Magnificat. There are also those five non-liturgical items that Monteverdi calls “sacred songs” which may be intended as antiphon substitutes. In short, the publication provides almost all the music one might desire for a sumptuous celebration of Mass and Vespers on a great Marian feast day.
The collection shows off everything Monteverdi might offer a prospective employer. On the one hand, he could compose according to the strictest rules of 16th-century counterpoint (the Mass). On the other, he could combine the most ancient melodies of the Church (plainchant) with the most up-to-date compositional style (in the psalms, hymn, and two Magnificats). The “sacred songs” or motets emphasize his mastery of virtuosic vocal writing and his ability to break the old rules of counterpoint in order to heighten the effect of the text, while the Sonata sopra Sancta Maria and the concerted Magnificat demonstrate his command of instrumental techniques.
Despite dedicating this magnificent dossier to the Pope, Monteverdi did not get a job at the Vatican. Three years later, however, he was appointed maestro di cappella at St Mark’s in Venice, the most prestigious ecclesiastical position in northern Italy. He remained in the post, honored and celebrated by the Most Serene Republic, until his death in 1643.
Born in 1567, Monteverdi was a musician with one foot in the Renaissance and one in the Baroque; indeed, he was one of the principal innovators who created the new style on the foundation of the old. The 1610 collection, which was assembled in part from pre-existing music, is a dazzling anthology of musical styles. It looks now to the strict polyphony of the 16th century, now to the harmonic audacities of the basso continuo era, answering (for example) the massive polychoral splendor of Nisi Dominus with the astonishing solo virtuosity and echo effects (both textual and musical) of Audi coelum—all leading to the most directly personal and touching moment of the work, when six singers address the Virgin directly: “Blessed art thou, Virgin Mary, world without end.” The Vespers of 1610 juxtaposes old and new, spiritual and theatrical, solo and choral, personal and hieratic. Finally, the foundation of this most modern work is built on plainchant cantus firmus, the oldest music of the Christian church.
The 1610 Vespers is, in short, one of the most profound, most spiritual, most historically aware, most musically audacious, most entertaining and deeply moving variety shows ever conceived, sure to sound as fresh and vivid at its five hundredth anniversary in 2110 as it does today.
Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) was not only an exceptional musician; he was great because of the power of meditation and poetical concentration, the seriousness and perseverance which he applied in the pursuit of his ideals. He was the first artist to revive the spirit of antique tragedy and create a music drama which was classical and modern at the same time. He was the creative musical genius whose aim was not the realization of the ideals of the distant past but the expression of the life and ardor that was in him. His grandiose imagination, his colorfulness, the never-abating richness of his musical invention, his tragic rhythm and astounding force of dramatic expression could not find an adequate field in the musical forms of his time. When the greatest musical genius of the early baroque speaks of a "seconda prattica musicale", he announced to the world that an entirely new musical style had been born, and that he was embarking on a "second", that is, new, musical practice." {Paul Henry Lang - Music in Western Civilization - 1941}
As I had mentioned before in a previous review, Claudio Monteverdi lived during a crucial period of profound change in music. The shift from late Renaissance to early Baroque, when composers were becoming more concerned with the meaning and feeling behind the words they set to music. Henceforth vocal music was supposed to derive the rules of its development more from the words than from the cantus firmus. The number of excellent madrigal composers at that time was large, and Monteverdi was one of the best at capturing the impetus and momentum of this new free and passionate art. The work in question here, the Vespro della Beata Vergine, was apparently not conceived as a whole, but was constructed out of various songs and madrigals written at different times, that came together to form one of the most ambitious sacred works of that period.
In this recording captured live at the Church of St. Jean Baptiste, New York City, in January 2020, the Tenet Vocal Artists along with the Dark Horse Consort, as part of their Green Mountain Project (appropriately named since Monteverdi is Italian for Green Mountain), provide a performance that well underpins the music's revitalized spirit. Not surprising when you consider that they set this project in motion with a 400th anniversary performance of this work in January of 2010, and have presented it in many cities, including Venice, ever since. With a single voice to each part and a small ensemble of cornetts, sackbuts, theorbos, organ and strings, the sound is clear and powerful without being opaque. The audio recording also well captures and projects the building's open acoustics, which augments the scope and size of the ensemble. Sit back and listen, and your favorite chair may well become a time-travel machine that takes you back 400 years.
— Jean-Yves Duperron, 9.01.2020
New Focus Recordings is an artist-led collective label featuring releases in contemporary creative music of many stripes, as well as new approaches to older repertoire. The label was founded by guitarist Dan Lippel, composer Peter Gilbert in 2004, and composer/engineer Ryan Streber in 2004, formed …Read More …
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