Viva Brighton Issue #51 May 2017

CLASSICAL
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I Fagiolini
Reviving Monteverdi’s lesser-known vespers
Photo by Keith Saunders
There’s a book from 1950
called ‘Monteverdi: Creator
of Modern Music’. What’s the
basis for that claim? Do you
agree? Well, it’s a great title for
a book... The more you look at
the music of his time, the more
you realise he was one of many.
Historically, the reason we still
perform his music is that it’s just
better than his contemporaries,
rather than the fact that it’s more
modern. His first opera wasn’t
the first opera, but it was the
best. His advanced harmony wasn’t as advanced as
Gesualdo, but his more sparing use was perhaps
more telling and less affected.
I’ve seen Monteverdi described as ‘a kind of
figurehead of the avant-garde’ of the time.
How challenging was his music to 17thcentury
ears, and how did people react to it?
In that it was very successful and it was absolutely
tonal, I’d say it wasn’t challenging in the way that
atonal music was in the 1920s, for example. He
didn’t invent new textures as such, and everything
that he did write was beautifully laid out, so that it
sounded sweet to the ear. He was a fabulous craftsman.
There was a well-documented incident with
a theorist challenging some of his madrigals - but
the challenge was about Monteverdi’s technique
and whether it followed old-school rules, rather
than the quality of his music. Elsewhere, he was
held by other musicians in the highest possible
regard, as far as it ever gets discussed.
It must have been quite exciting to have been
Monteverdi in the later part of his career; it
was the early days of modern opera, a format
which apparently suited his
talents. And it sounds like he
was famous and successful
enough to just focus on that,
if he’d wanted. So why did
he carry on making church
music? He probably didn’t
see it that way, still trying to
get money out of his erstwhile
employers, the Gonzagas [the
ruling family in Mantua]. And
remember that the first commercial
opera house didn’t open
until 1637, six years before he
died. He carried on with church music because he
was a priest, and his official position was as maestro
at St Mark’s [in Venice], the most prestigious
musical position in Europe. However, we can’t
really say when he composed most of the pieces in
the concert we’re performing: only that they were
published in 1641. Some may date back as far as
the 1590s.
Apparently his 1610 vespers are often performed,
and these later ones aren’t. Why? The
1610 vespers were published in a volume with
little motets between the psalms, and thus make
a nicely balanced ready-made modern concert.
With this later volume, there are choices to be
made - the director has to do a bit more work! It’s
habit, though. The 1610 has been performed and
recorded for decades now. Perhaps this recording
will shift the balance.
Steve Ramsey interviewed Robert Hollingworth
Robert directs I Fagiolini. Their new CD, on Decca,
is Monteverdi: The Other Vespers. They’ll perform
a concert with the same title at Glyndebourne on
7th. brightonfestival.org
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