New to both of us but rather splendid, with the more or less full church making a fine setting for the music. With a lot of variety, it rather reminded me of a Christmas festival of nine lessons and carols. Also that, at the time of writing, the divide between sacred and secular music was not what it became at the time that Anglican sacred music flourished in the nineteenth century. Blurred again now with the extensive use of electric guitars, tambourines and Powerpoints in churches - all practises which, as an atheist with no voting rights in the matter - I deplore.
One of the things noticed on this occasion was the interesting sight of the open mouths of some of the singers. In the right conditions, when the lighting is right and nothing of the interior can be seen - tongue, teeth or whatever - I find the effect very odd, as if one is peering into some kind of a cave. There is a rather ugly picture in the National Gallery in which the early Italian renaissance painter (I think) tries to capture this effect and earlier today I tried to find the picture, trying various search terms in both Bing and Google. I even resorted to browsing by date on the National Gallery website. The picture at reference 1 and illustrated left turned up quite quickly, but I remain unconvinced that it is the picture in question. The right sort of thing, but I remember four or more singers and a rather cruder painting. I think a visit to check is indicated. Otherwise, Bing and Google were both rather haphazard in what they turned up, this, I suppose, being the consequence of the haphazard way in which their images have been labelled - as I don't suppose that either of them is into content search quite yet.
I had continued to muddle up cornets and sackbuts, wrongly thinking the former to be a sort of early trumpet (looking rather like a trombone with narrow gauge pipework) and the latter a sort of early oboe (a tapered black instrument with holes like a recorder rather than keys like an oboe), when actually it was the other way around. Maybe if I attach cornet to corne to horn - the cornet being rather like a long, slightly curved horn in shape - I will get it right next time.
But we did get theorbo right, being a sort of very long necked lute flanked with sounding strings, last seen at the concert noticed at reference 2. But a different lutenist, Lynda Sayce, on this occasion. And unlike the rest of the small orchestra, she was kept busy, in action most of the time.
Inspecting the vinyl earlier today (Thursday), I find that the one and only recording in my possession of music by Monteverdi is this very same Vespers, offered in 1976 or so by King's College Choir and others. A recording which has a rather different flavour to the rapidly receding performance from last Saturday. Re-reading the old (David Hansell) notes and reading the new (David Arnold) notes made me realise how much I had missed and so I asked Bachtrack if there was anything else in the offing, and it turned up a performance in Birmingham Town Hall, Sunday week. The fact that Epsom station is up the spout that day is a bit of a downer, so I don't suppose I am going to make it, which is a pity as it would also have been an opportunity to take a first peek at the Birmingham Art Gallery, which I believe to be strong on the Pre-Raphaelites, on whom I am keen.
Perhaps the fact that Monteverdi leaves much to the discretion of the music master is part of the attraction of the work. To a larger extent than is usual with music that has been written down, one can make what one will of it. To the point that one has to work the align the Ripieno batting order with that given in Wikipedia.
Reference 1: Lorenzo Costa - A Concert - 1490. With thanks to the National Gallery for the illustration.
Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/viols.html.
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