Vox Luminis

Monteverdi's Vespers The Vespers (1610) by Claudio Monteverdi are far more than a church evening prayer. The maestro of San Marco departs from the traditional vesper recipe – a combination of psalms, hymns and cantica – but transforms it into a sound spectacle of the highest caliber. Opera and liturgy, old and new, pious and sensual: everything clashes and merges into one grandiose design. The score breathes the space of the basilica in which Monteverdi developed the sound of the future, as if the ornate galleries, balconies and choir stalls inspired the sound architecture. Monteverdi is brilliant with voices but also employs cornetti, trombones, strings, organ and continuo – not as decorative elements, but as colors on a palette. Some passages are monumental, others sober and narrative or explicitly virtuosic. In this masterful labyrinth it is good to linger with Vox Luminis: a collective of sound perfectionists with their head in the sources and their heart on their tongue. Program: C. Monteverdi: Vespro della beata vergine