In 1641, two years before his death, Monteverdi arranged for the publication of a substantial volume of liturgical music that more or less encapsulated the three decades he had spent as choirmaster at St Mark’s in Venice. But that collection, the Selva Morale et Spirituale, was by no means comprehensive. Seven years after his death, the publisher Vincenti, with help from Monteverdi’s pupil Francesco Cavalli, put together another volume, the Messa et Salmi, consisting mostly, it seems, of pieces discovered among the composer’s own manuscripts, along with a Magnificat of Cavalli’s own.
In fact, the title Mass for four voices is not included on the first of two discs that The Sixteen will devote to the collection. But there is still no shortage of first-rate music here, dispelling any notion that the Messa et Salmi only consists of pieces that Monteverdi himself did not think were worthy of preserving for posterity, especially a virtuoso polyphonic setting of the psalm Laetatus Sum, and a wonderfully varied version of the Litany of the Blessed Virgin, as well as the long, expressive lines of Cavalli’s Magnificat. The Sixteen’s performances have the group’s usual unfussy directness; the sound has no churchy over-resonance about it, either, so that the intricacies of the writing are always perfectly clear.
