The Vespro veneziano that Andrea Marcon has assembled for the present release is inspired by the resplendent sounds of the music that was performed at the great Christmas Vespers in St. Mark’s in the presence of the foremost dignitaries of La Serenissima and a large audience of aristocrats and visitors from the whole of Europe. This reconstruction features works from various printed anthologies of works by Monteverdi and other composers from this time and presents the sort of Vespers that might have been heard in Venice over the Christmas period during the long incumbency of “il divino Claudio” as maestro di cappella at St Mark’s.

LA CETRA, renowned early music choir and orchestra based in Basel (Switzerland), are accompanied by a very special organ for this recording which shaped their way of singing and playing, intensifying the affects, the chiaroscuro, the harmonic tension and the dynamic palette, producing a surprisingly modern, majestic, bright and vivid sound-image of the music of Monteverdi and the Venetian 17th century.

Tracklist:

CD 1

Deus in adiutorium meum intende
Domine ad adiuvandum (Claudio Monteverdi)
Intonatione del primo tono (Giovanni Gabrieli)
Psalm 109: Dixit Dominus II (Claudio Monteverdi)
felix, o lucidissima nox (Alessandro Grandi)
Intonatione del undicesimo tono (Giovanni Gabrieli)
Psalm 110: Confitebor tibi, Domini III (alla francese) (Giovanni Gabrieli)
Sonata a 8 con quattro soprani (Francesco Usper)
Intonatione del quinto tono (Giovanni Gabrieli)
Psalm 111: Beatus vir I (Claudio Monteverdi)
intemerata (Alessandro Grandi)

CD 2

Intonatione del secondo tono (Giovanni Gabrieli)
Psalm 112: Laudate pueri II (Claudio Monteverdi)
Venite, sitientes, ad aquas Domini (Claudio Monteverdi)
Intonatione del ottavo tono (Giovanni Gabrieli)
Psalm 116: Laudate Dominum I (Claudio Monteverdi)
Sonata XVIII a 14 (Giovanni Gabrieli)
Hymnus: Christe redemptor omnium (Claudio Monteverdi)
Hodie Christus natus est (Giovanni Valentini)
Intonatione del nono tono (Giovanni Gabrieli)
Magnificat I (Claudio Monteverdi)
Intonatione del decimo tono (Giovanni Gabrieli)
Cantate Domino a 6 (Claudio Monteverdi)

Andrea Marcon

Claudio Monteverdi: Vespro di Natale / Christmas Vespers