There’s no evidence that Monteverdi imagined the volume of liturgical pieces that he published in Venice in 1610 would ever be regarded as a single, unified work and regularly performed as such. But since the Vespers became a part of the choral repertory in the second half of the 20th century, conductors and musicologists have continued to look for new ways of performing the whole work.
For their version, Marco Mencoboni and his 50-strong Cantar Lontano began with a surviving copy of the original published edition – Mencoboni details some of their resulting performing decisions in his sleeve notes. Plainsong antiphons punctuate the whole sequence of set pieces and, to enhance the authenticity further, the performance took place in 2009 in the basilica of the ducal court in Mantua, where Monteverdi was employed when he published the Vespers – the very space, presumably, that he composed much of this joyously antiphonal music for.
The venue, though, comes with problems. Though it’s very much a “live” recording, issued in surround sound, the resonant acoustic consistently muddies the textures, despite the consistently slow tempi Mencoboni favours. Some of it is undeniably atmospheric, and there’s a real frisson in hearing the restored organ that Monteverdi himself must have played. But really too much instrumental and choral detail disappears into a soup of sonorities to recommend the performance.
