The full Monte
A sumptuous rerelease of a fabled performance is a fine way to celebrate the Shakespeare of music.
Claudio Monteverdi, it’s been suggested, would have hated being described as a composer of “early music”. An innovator who straddled the Renaissance and Baroque periods, he wrote music that was uncompromisingly modern. This year marks the 450th anniversary of his birth and several new releases celebrate his musical genius.
More than 50 years ago, the so-called “early music” scene was electrified by young English conductor John Eliot Gardiner. Galvanising what he called the “foggy and bland” world of English choral singing with a first performance by what became his Monteverdi Choir, he shone a light on Monteverdi’s Vespers, these days a beloved work in the concert repertory.
Deutsche Grammophon, through its subsidiary Archiv Produktion, has marked the anniversary with a sumptuous rerelease of the Vespers under Gardiner’s direction. From fabled performances in St Mark’s Basilica in Venice in 1989, this deluxe set offers the complete Vespers on two CDs, with a DVD of the concert from the BBC’s television coverage.
Resplendent in scarlet, the choir performs with unrestrained passion under the frescoed domes of St Mark’s, accompanied with staggering instrumental virtuosity by the English Baroque Soloists and His Majesty’s Sagbutts and Cornetts.
There are some minor issues of format, but this watershed event is a perfect illustration of the significance of Monteverdi, a composing genius as important to music as his contemporary Shakespeare was to theatre.
Claudio Monteverdi: Vespers of the Blessed Virgin, John Eliot Gardiner (Archiv Produktion)
Vespers shows only one aspect of this remarkable composer. An anniversary compilation set, The Beauty of Monteverdi, from the same label, reminds us of his role in opera and other secular music. Only three of Monteverdi’s 18 operas have survived, but fortunately we have his first, L’Orfeo, which pointed the way forward for the art form. Here, we’re offered excerpts from this defining work at the beginning of the Baroque period, again under Gardiner’s direction.
The famous Lament of Arianna, from an opera now lost, is sung by celebrated Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter. From the opening “Lasciatemi morire” (“Let me die”), the aria runs the gamut of the abandoned heroine’s emotions – despair, longing, indignation and tenderness.
This release features a who’s who of early-music stars, with standouts including Emma Kirkby, whose famously clear soprano spills out charmingly innocent madrigals accompanied by the Consort of Musicke.
Even more striking are the chromatic and gritty madrigals of love and war from Magdalena Kožená and others.
The Beauty of Monteverdi, multiple artists (Archiv Produktion)
Pianist Yevgeny Sudbin and conductor Osmo Vänskä have offered a small nod to historical performance practice for the recording of the final two of their cycle of Beethoven piano concertos, Nos 1 and 2. They chose the Minnesota Orchestra for their lauded releases of Beethoven’s later concertos; for these earlier works they worked with the Tapiola Sinfonietta, a chamber orchestra well suited to performances of classical Viennese clarity and elegance.
A lot of the time it works. Soloist and orchestra breathe together in the slow movements and achieve elasticity and momentum in the faster ones. The interpretation is unfussy, and if Sudbin’s virtuosity seems occasionally too energetic and his cadenzas unnecessarily complex in texture, these are small quibbles, and I was mostly impressed by the way this impeccable and stylish partnership captured Beethoven’s drama and tender poetry. Beethoven Piano Concertos 1 & 2, Yevgeny Sudbin, Tapiola Sinfonietta,
Osmo Vänskä (BIS)