March 28 & 29, 2025
Cathedral of St. Philip
Atlanta, Georgia – USA
Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, Julie Andrijeski, artistic director; Cathedral of St. Philip Choir & Schola, Dale Adelmann, director; Margaret Carpenter Haigh and Andrea Walker, sopranos; Thomas Cooley, Richard Pittsinger, tenors; and Sumner Thompson, baritone/tenor.
Claudio MONTEVERDI: 1610 Vespers
Michael Moore | 7 APR 2025
Jerome Roche, editor of the 1994 edition of the “Vespro della Beata Vergine da concerto, composto sopra canti fermi, SV206,” writes, “Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers is a work which has simultaneously fascinated and perplexed musicologists and performers for many years.” That is the truth. The score leaves so much to the performer, as much performance practice of the day was understood rather than indicated. We do not truly know if this was a collection of pieces to be utilized with whatever resources one had, such as service music to plug in, sacred concertos, or motets. Or was it designed to be performed all at once, as it often is today? By large or small ensembles? Was it intended as a demonstration of the composer’s “composing chops?” Was it a job application to leave Mantua for greener pastures like Venice? We’ll never quite know for sure. But the good news, great news, is that it is all fabulous music that can be used multiple ways, including entirely with full chorus and Baroque orchestra, besides being an exceedingly important seminal work we can conveniently call the “bridge” from the Renaissance to what we now call the Baroque.
Many people have never heard of Claudio Monteverdi, or really, any composers before J.S. Bach (who apparently “sprung from the head of Zeus”). Let’s be clear: Monteverdi belongs in the pantheon with all of the more familiar Baroque composers, not just because he helped jump-start what we now call modern music, but because what he wrote was extraordinarily good music! And this music needs to be performed, and often, along with Monteverdi’s contemporaries, many of whom he greatly influenced. His first opera (a term not widely used until 1650), l’Orfeo, from 1607, is still widely performed. His “1610 Vespers” includes music he wrote between l’Orfeo and the Vespers’ publishing in Venice three years later.
Atlantans were treated to two well-attended live performances of Monteverdi’s masterpiece on March 28 and 29 in the Cathedral of St. Philip and this reviewer heard both.
There have been two Atlanta performance sets previously, one roughly 50 years ago through Emory University’s early music program, and another in March 2002 with the New Trinity Baroque, under Predrag Gosta, now based in London. Last week’s fully-mounted performances were a collaboration between the Cathedral of St. Philip Choir and Schola with the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, artists-in-residence at the Cathedral under the artistic direction of Julie Andrijeski. Dale Adelmann, Canon for Music at St. Philip, conducted the concerts, which the Friends of Cathedral Music graciously presented at the Cathedral of St. Philip. The forces used included a 50-member chorus, including 36 Schola members, a 21-piece authentically-outfitted Baroque orchestra, including specialists from elsewhere, such as members of Chicago’s Newberry Consort, providing cornets, sackbuts, recorders and other early winds, baroque strings, harp, theorbo, portable organ continuo, and five acclaimed soloists. The dynamic range (and no dynamics are in the original) was phenomenal—from a barely audible hush to a huge, but not necessarily loud, sound that enveloped the audience from all directions in that resonant church, all in near-perfect balance.
The printed program was deliciously detailed, with exact contexts, solo and choral forces, comprehensive, color-coded performance notes, and the original Latin and English translations. The eclectic collective work comprises six Psalms, a 9th-century hymn, two from Song of Songs, one based on Isaiah and I John, the Magnificat (Luke), and two with non-biblical text, including an instrumental sonata. There are seven brilliant and dissimilar versions of the Gloria Patri, further demonstrating the infinite ways Monteverdi could set simple, familiar text.
Cornetti and sackbuts (predecessor of the trombone) in the orchestra for Monteverdi’s ‘Vespers.’ (credit: Megan Varner)
The soloists were all first-rate. Sopranos Margaret Carpenter Haigh and Andrea Walker, both individually and when they sang together, incorporated just enough acting to reinforce their text. Their “Pulchra es” was divine. Young American tenor Richard Pittsinger’s allegorical solo piece, “Nigra sum,” was rendered in a relatively restrained manner, rather than the more dramatic takes of tenors such as Emiliano Gonzalez-Toro on Raphaël Pichon’s 2023 recording. Still, his voice was well balanced in the tenor duets and trios with Thomas Cooley and Sumner Thompson, prolific later in successive movements, particularly in the “Duo Seraphim” and “Audi coelum.” The latter featured one of several echo sections with one tenor and harp in the front, the other with theorbo in the back singing melismas in echo. The echo technique was one of the composer’s favorites, and he used it both with soloists and with solo instruments, reminiscent of “Possente spirito” in Act 3 of his earlier l’Orfeo. It is a technique that delights audiences to this day.
And then there was the chorus! Monteverdi was a great master not only of madrigals and simple solo examples of dramatic monody so useful in opera but also of choral writing. His imagination was boundless, utilizing his choral forces in multiple, imaginative configurations, particularly in this Vespers.
A synopsis of the concert:
1. Deus in adjutorium – All instruments play this fanfare written for his patrons, the Mantuan Ganzagas, and used as the opening toccata to his famed 1607 opera, l’Orfeo. The full choir drones the Psalm text on a D major chord, separated by three short instrumental ritornelli, with a fourth commanding the Alleluia. It was a very rousing start in composition and this performance.
2. Dixit Dominus – This psalm begins quietly with a six-part chorus, quickly gaining in intensity, leading to a patchwork of alternating sections of two sopranos, choir, two tenors, choir, over the cantus firmus (literally fixed tune or chant), ending in a beautiful Gloria Patri that matches the style of the Psalmic text perfectly.
3. Nigra sum – Tenor solo with plucked instrumental accompaniment. It is a complete departure from the opening two grand numbers, demonstrating the dramatic monodic style Monteverdi championed.
4. Laudate pueri – The third Psalm is for eight-part choir, opening chorally followed by soprano, then tenor, and baritone soli sections in more elaborate style, each over the cantus firmus sung slowly by the tenors, altos, and sopranos in turn. The movement ends with an exuberant choral Gloria Patri, which is also in the exact style of the psalm, fading into an elegant tenor duet.
5. Pulchra es – Another monodic solo piece, becoming a lovely soprano duet interpreted as praising the beauty of the Virgin Mary.
6. Laetatus sum – This Psalm begins after a “walking bass” intro with a tenor cantus firmus, which adds the full six-part choir before breaking into tenor, soprano, and baritone soli sections, with the choral cantus firmus utilized under many of the more florid soli passages. This particular piece is one of my favorites, as it contains a plethora of divergent yet surprisingly related styles. It ends with Gloria Patri No. 4. The outstanding bass sackbut is somewhat dominant when appropriate.
7. Duo Seraphim – Three tenors sing this very imitative sacred concerto with only continuo. Much material here is reminiscent of the final act of l’Orfeo. The long chain suspension in the beginning could not have been better rendered, and the virtuosic melismatic sections were well interpreted.
8. Nisi Dominus – This is the first example in this work of Monteverdi’s demonstration of how well he could write in the Venetian polychoral style. It is all for a double choir in ten parts, each SATTB. This piece is also in a more late-renaissance Gabrieli-esque style, with his use of triple meter and syncopated imitation. The concluding fifth Gloria Patri is absolutely exquisite, the end of which reverts to the style of the beginning of the piece.
Continuo instruments and sackbuts in Monteverdi’s ‘Vespers.’ Center foreground: a theorbo – a plucked string instrument of the lute family. (credit: Megan Varner)
9. Audi coelum/Omnes hanc ergo – This was a dramatic tour de force for the tenor soloists, featuring one of several virtuosic echo sections with one tenor and harp in the front, the other with theorbo in the back singing melismas in echo. The movement departs from the earlier less liturgical numbers by its use of a six-part choir for the final half, introducing rapid dance-like triple meter alternating with pathos-laden soft sections. For good measure, the choir is echoed by the tenor soloists before a final a cappella ending, magnificently performed.
10. Lauda Jerusalem – Another double choir in six parts with an added tenor cantus firmus. In this performance, the Cathedral Choir sings the opening two lines, and the Gloria Patri, the smaller Cathedral Schola, sings the bulk of the piece. This piece is a real romp, with lots of imitation and syncopation which just bounces along. Rather, it does until the Gloria Patri, which may well be Monteverdi’s best setting of this common text. From bar 60, the rising bass line was used nearly identically in the seventh movement of Brahms’ Requiem. Other composers, such as Heinrich Schütz (who made a second trip to Venice in 1628 to learn from Monteverdi and bring the new stile moderno into Germany), also utilized that beautiful chord progression in particularly poignant spots.
At this point, there was intermission.
11. Sonata Sopra “Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis” – A sort of intermezzo to provide relief from all of the heavier works. The work is instrumental, with a pair of violins and a pair of cornetti exhibiting their considerable prowess, with the sackbuts and all the others joining in. To keep the Marian theme, 12 sopranos sing the rather light-hearted G major cantus firmus. Due to its complexity and fun, contemporary brass instrumentalists often play this piece alone. Dale Adelmann and the ensemble handled the tricky tempo relationships expertly.
12. Ave Maris stella – based on a ninth-century hymn, this eight-part double choir motet is in seven verses, including two by soprano and one by tenor soloists, separated by instrumental ritornelli by tutti, cornets and sackbuts, strings, and recorders. The a capella Cathedral Schola was perhaps at its best in this movement; it was especially pleasing with the two choirs commencing in the very back of the Cathedral and gradually working their way forward during the ornamented instrumental ritornelli provided by each instrumental grouping. The final verse, with the two choirs on each side facing each other in the front of the cathedral many yards apart, was absolutely breathtaking perfection. To be placed that far apart and create such embracing, balanced ensemble is very difficult, yet Adelmann and company did so and made it sound absolutely effortless.
13. Magnificat – the Grand Finale. Another occasionally freestanding piece, this 22-minute work itself consists of 12 sections, sung by choirs of up to six and seven parts, with the canticle’s cantus firmus rendered with great piety by the various men’s and women’s voices. There were, of course, virtuosic solo parts as well, and more instrumental ritornelli which were even more forward-looking, harkening to much later Monteverdi, such as the final act of his opera Poppea in 1643. The glorious dynamics, fluid, angelic sound, and obvious devotion in the SSA/TTB choirs used in the Et misericordia literally brought me to tears. There were also more enchanting echo sections, including one that showed off the brilliance of the first stand of violins. As if all of this wasn’t enough, the seventh and final Gloria Patri was beyond exquisite, with an intensity that just built and built within its final minutes. I didn’t think such intensity could be sustained, but the assembled forces accomplished this admirably. By the end, with everyone singing and playing, the resulting resonance enveloped the listener and could be called transcendental. With this setting of the Magnificat, Monteverdi truly pulled out all of the stops. It is a masterpiece within a masterpiece. I would consider it one of the most beautiful and certainly one of the most consequential works of the entire Baroque period.
These St. Philip/Atlanta Baroque Orchestra performances were two for the ages, and anyone fortunate enough to experience them live was treated to a true musical blessing. Let’s hope that this 415-year-old work will inspire each of us to seek out more music of that exciting, experimental era! ■
EXTERNAL LINKS:
- Atlanta Baroque Orchestra: atlantabaroque.org
- Cathedral of St. Philip Choir & Schola: cathedralatl.org/worship/music/choirs
Read more by Michael Moore.
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