Claudio MONTEVERDI (1567-1643)
Vespro della Beata Vergine (1610) [90:02]
Nicholas Mulroy, Thomas Hobbs (tenors);
Choir of New College Oxford; Charivari Agréable/Edward Higginbottom
rec. St. Michael’s Church, Summertown, Oxford, 13-16, 22-23 July 2009, DDD.
Booklet includes Latin sung texts and an English translation.
NOVUM NCR 1382 [57:30 + 33:02]
This 400th anniversary recording of Monteverdi’s Vespers
can claim to be more authentic than most. Not only are period instruments
used but also all male voices in a choir whose raison d’être is to
sing services in its college chapel.
The opening Deus in adjutorium (CD1 tr. 1) has its plain chords firmly
stated by the choir. The spotlight is given to the instrumental embellishment
around these chords which Monteverdi reworked from the Toccata opening
his opera Orfeo. This is appropriate because it sets the pattern for
the choral psalm settings where other voices are layered over the plainchant
element. Its dancing instrumental interludes become the choir’s Alleluias.
The effect is festive and sunny, especially given the florid yet entirely
fitting ornamentation added by Charivari Agréable. The recording has a pleasing
sense of ample, yet not vast, ecclesiastical space. Arguably the forward positioning
of the instruments favours them a touch overmuch in relation to the voices.
I compared the 1989 recording by the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque
Soloists/John Eliot Gardiner (Archiv 4295652). This was made live at St Mark’s
Venice, which is a vast ecclesiastical space. There’s a high current awareness
of Gardiner’s interpretation given his Proms performance on 10 September 2010
and European tour. In this opening movement Edward Higginbottom’s voices are
more intent and worshipful, Gardiner’s more eager and acclamatory. The festive
instrumentation, springing Alleluias and moment to take in all the grandeur
in the final Amen’s ritenuto are similar. Higginbottom offers an additional
contrast by giving the repeat of the instrumental interlude (1:00) to strings
alone after its first appearance on brass and strings.
The two interpretations become more contrasted in Dixit Dominus (tr.
2), the first psalm. Higginbottom is striking for the cleansing clarity of
the trebles’ entries, the first after the lower voices introduce the text.
Their shining assumption of the chant from ‘Iudicabit in nationibus’ (5:32)
makes a stunningly scouring sound which can’t be achieved with sopranos. They
make a similar fine contribution to the starkly etched doxology. The passages
for soloists are also well projected, though more contemplatively than Gardiner’s.
They are scrupulously layered over the clear yet not dominating chant presented
by a few basses. What works less well is the deliberation, at times over-careful,
in the cadential flourishes. You can hear this, for example on ‘tuis’ (4:25).
Gardiner’s account is more dramatized and exciting with marked contrasts in
dynamics, such as the softer opening before, in his case, the sopranos enter.
Gardiner has a faster, even aggressive, approach to the chordal recitations
and is more propulsive in the cadential flourishes; that of ‘tuis’ lighter
than Higginbottom and madrigalian. Gardiner’s lone voice intoning the ‘Gloria
patri’ is more mystical, his choral response more dancing, but the quiet gravity
of Higginbottom’s Amen is telling in a different way.
Nigra sum (tr. 3) for solo tenor is the first of the ‘sacred concertos’,
motets which alternate with the psalm settings. Nicholas Mulroy performs its
juicy text from the Song of Soloman with a lovely candour. The ardour
is there but there’s also something of decorum, a guileless quality, so it
comes across as an active meditation, a kind of decent intimacy. This is exemplified
by Mulroy’s delicate application of ornamentation, albeit varied and elaborated,
at the return of ‘surge, amica mea’ (3:02) and the melodic climax on ‘veni’(3:17).
For Gardiner Mark Tucker, because in a vast acoustic, is more projected, less
intimate. His adding more ornamentation emphasises the difference. I prefer
Mulroy’s greater transparency.
For Higginbottom the second psalm Laudate pueri (tr. 4) is a sonorous
call to worship, for Gardiner an eager invitation. At ‘Sit nomen Domini’ (0:50)
Higginbottom gives us the clarity of the vocal chant from the tenors alone
beneath the two treble soloists. Gardiner enhances the colour with a sackbut
on the chant line, but this obscures the voices a little. Higginbottom only
employs instrumental doubling of vocal lines in the Sonata sopra Sancta
Maria and Magnificat, where it’s specifically requested by Monteverdi;
Gardiner does it for emphasis at climactic moments in the psalms too so it
rather capriciously comes and goes. With Higginbottom at ‘Excelsis super omnes
gentes dominus’ (1:41) you can marvel at the beaming trebles’ chant above
the semi-quaver pyrotechnics of his two guest tenor soloists, Mulroy and Thomas
Hobbs. Gardiner offers more contrast in tempo. His choruses are more urgent
and he slows down for a creamy sopranos’ descent at ‘Ut collocet eum’ where
Higginbottom (3:10) goes for a fuller, more ethereal tone and the surprise
of an ornamented treble part moving to the first cadence. As the Amen diminishes
from six to two voice parts Gardiner has it more lightly wafting to the skies
and disappearing. Higginbottom is crisply rhythmic but remains very present.
Pulchra es (tr. 5), the second sacred concerto, is sung by Higginbottom’s
trebles Sebastian Cox and James Swash with exemplary clarity and beauty of
tone. It’s also a lusty account, in the athletic sense. For revelation of
the inherent sexuality you have to turn to Gardiner’s sopranos Marinella Pennechi
and Ann Monoyios, but in a context of more appreciation of artifice. Solo
gives way to duet magically at ‘averte oculos tuos’ as the top soprano moves
from D to G sharp with the second soprano moving from G to B. This is what
happens in the 1999 Kurtzman edition and I wonder why Higginbottom here (2:35)
opts for a more severe first treble moving from G to G sharp with the second
treble staying on B.
Higginbottom’s Laetatus sum, the third psalm (tr. 6), opens in relaxed
fashion soon offset by the bright, fluorescent trebles’ entry. Thereafter
the chorus displays rhythmic and contrapuntal bite with ‘propter fratres me’
(4:45) especially affirmative and the Gloria a flood of sound. Gardiner’s,
use of string-bass where Higginbottom has organ alone provides a more smiling
and purposeful impetus while his doubling brass instruments make for a sunnier
Gloria.
In Higginbottom’s third sacred concerto, Duo seraphim cry expansively
and ardently. When the focus later moves from the two seraphim to the Trinity,
Father, Word and Holy Spirit, a third tenor soloist Thomas Raskin from New
College Choir holds his own with guests Mulroy and Hobbs. Those flurries of
semi-quavers and demisemiquavers vividly quiver and all three provide a magnificent
closing cadential embellishment. Uncharacteristically Gardiner is slower (6:43
against Higginbottom’s 5:54) and not to advantage: the joins in the runs become
apparent. His soloists’ homophony is more rapt than Higginbottom’s but assigning
‘Plena est omnis terra’ to chorus reduces the intensity of the piece.
In Higginbottom’s case the double choir psalm, Nisi Dominus (tr. 8)
is a little laid back for the urgency to be telling when one choir enters
cutting across the other. That said, the later running quavers are firmly
articulated, the change to triple time at ‘sicut sagittae’ (2:32) leads to
a more swinging manner and the Gloria has an exultant head of steam. Gardiner
is lighter, sunnier, but the text deserves Higginbottom’s greater edge.
Audi coelum (tr. 9), the fourth sacred concerto with its demanding
range, the low rather than the high for a tenor, is intently and finely sung
by Hobbs with Mulroy an attentive echo. Its choral section is formal and the
sheer body of sound Higginbottom raises makes for a satisfying peroration.
Gardiner’s Nigel Robson adds ornamentation more regularly which makes the
solo seem more calculated. Hobbs reserves added ornamentation more effectively
at moments of heightened expression like ‘coelos’ (2:59). Gardner, however,
has a more effectively distanced echo in Tucker and a choral section of more
striking changes than Higginbottom’s in tempo, dynamic and mood, especially
its hushed close.
Lauda Jerusalem, the second double choir psalm, features more regular
interchange between the two choirs. From Higginbottom, who transposes the
piece down a tone, you get firmness of choral acclamation. It’s stirringly
sung but also with a sense of due solemnity. Gardiner is faster (3:51 against
Higginbottom’s 5:06) and, at original pitch, happier with a dancing evangelism
which nevertheless doesn’t short-change those moments of top line descant.
He uses full brass to point up the grandeur of the Gloria.
The Sonata sopra Sancta Maria brings us back to the instrumental dominance
of the opening movement. This one is a highly varied parade of instrumental
sleight of hand over which is fused the trebles’ chant ‘Sancta Maria ora pro
nobis’. On the one hand it’s formal and weighted, on the other clear and bright,
an uneasy ambiguity well realized by Higginbottom. His trebles have an edge
bringing a keenness, a real pleading to what is after all a prayer. Gardiner’s
instruments are lighter and more dancing. He does use young voices here, but
still the mixed ones of the London Oratory Junior Choir. They are eager and
welcoming but Gardiner doesn’t convey Higginbottom’s progression of feeling
as the piece becomes more climactic.
Now comes a fresh perspective, the hymn Ave maris stella. Its seven
verses necessitate a melodically more uniform progress than previously but
this is enlivened by variety of scoring: verses 1 and 7 for double choir,
verses 2 and 3 for first and second choir in turn, verses 4 to 6 for solo
voices. Higginbottom makes the hymn an active witness, quite personal and
expressive, with a sinewy quality where Gardiner goes for the soft contours
of humble adoration. Unlike Higginbottom, he misses the personal quality of
verse 4 by not assigning it, as marked, to a solo treble.
In the closing Magnificat for 7 voice parts (CD2 tr. 3) the position is reversed
at ‘anima mea Dominum’ (0:21) after the opening statement of ‘Magnificat’,
where Higginbottom uses all his trebles rather than the solo Monteverdi prescribed
while Gardiner has just one soprano. Higginbottom transposes the Magnificat
down a minor third whereas Gardiner performs it at original pitch. Gardiner’s
tenor soloists are more operatic in ‘Et exultavit’ but Higginbottom provides
a more expressive, caring chant from his altos or falsettisti as they are
termed in the CD booklet. In ‘Quia respexit’ piffari (shawms) and recorders
are pleasingly layered over the voices but a slowish tempo for ‘Quia fecit’
makes its duet for bass soloists rather stiff.
The alternation of low and high choral voices in ‘Et misericordia’ is pointed
with a stark realism by Higginbottom where Gardiner prefers a creamy mysticism.
Higginbottom chooses to have ‘Fecit potentiam’ sung decorously by a body of
falsettisti. Soloist Michael Chance for Gardiner shows that a more declamatory
manner from one voice is more telling. ‘Deposuit’ features 2 cornetts and
then 2 violins above and between the statements of the chant. In both cases
the second instrument echoes the first and this is less markedly realized
by Higginbottom than by Gardiner. This is probably because Higginbottom’s
recording venue, St Michael’s Summertown, while amply proportioned and a pleasing
acoustic, is only of medium size. Whatever the reason, all the echo effects
in this recording can only be termed moderate.
‘Suscepit Israel’ features glowing treble soloists and a smiling chant line
from the tenors as opposed to Gardiner’s lighter, operatic sopranos who are,
however, also effective. The vocal arabesques which begin the Gloria are finely
done by Mulroy and Hobbs but a bit urbane in comparison with the more colourful
Robson and Tucker for Gardiner. Tucker is more distantly and dramatically
in echo. Higginbottom, on the other hand, brings more fervour to the chant.
His ‘Sicut erat’ has more tautness and sense of climax than Gardiner but the
latter’s Amen, like much of his faster rhythm choral work light but dancing,
is more incisive.
To sum up, Higginbottom offers a distinctive Vespers with some winning
features: a choral sound quality closer to the original than most recordings.
Some concentrated, dedicated solo singing within which ornamentation has been
integrated as a living element, and an emphasis on the work’s religious and
contemplative context. However, as I have indicated above, there are times
when the approach seems over-deliberate. Gardiner embraces the work as full-blooded
music-drama. The choice between him and Higginbottom is in two differing manifestations
of its spirituality. Higginbottom stresses a purity and intentness in its
religious witness, Gardiner a more variegated and human theatricality.
Higginbottom gives you the Vespers complete, but unlike Gardiner he
only provides the Magnificat for 7 voice parts and instruments, not in addition
the alternative Magnificat for 6 voice parts and organ that Monteverdi also
provided in his 1610 publication. The fuller choral and instrumental Magnificat
is preferable and more in keeping with the other movements, but the contrast
of the two settings is educative, an opportunity to provide an extra 20 minutes
music not taken by Higginbottom, with the result that the second disc of this
two CD set plays for only 33 minutes. This objection is, however, outweighed
in that the Novum set is competitively priced to take account of this and
accordingly provides arguably better value for money than Gardiner. In both
cases the conductor has written the booklet notes. Higginbottom’s here are
particularly lucid and instructive with regard to the work’s background, music
and performance issues.
Michael Greenhalgh
A distinctive Vespers with some winning features.