"Chamber Vespers" is a category invented for this recording by the Gonzaga Band, a British ensemble named for the powerful and at times arts-friendly Gonzaga family of Mantua, Italy. The Vespers setting known to casual early Baroque listeners is likely to be the work known as the Vespers of 1610 of Claudio Monteverdi, a massive work whose very size and sumptuousness have made it into a musicological puzzle: it's not clear who would have bankrolled a performance or how it would have been used. The music on this album, by ...
Read More
"Chamber Vespers" is a category invented for this recording by the Gonzaga Band, a British ensemble named for the powerful and at times arts-friendly Gonzaga family of Mantua, Italy. The Vespers setting known to casual early Baroque listeners is likely to be the work known as the Vespers of 1610 of Claudio Monteverdi, a massive work whose very size and sumptuousness have made it into a musicological puzzle: it's not clear who would have bankrolled a performance or how it would have been used. The music on this album, by contrast, could have been and in fact was used in everyday services. The performers assemble a Vespers service from works by various composers, with psalms, hymns, and the Magnificat canticle alternating with instrumental works. Some are well-known pieces, such as the Capriccio sopra un soggetto (1626) of Frescobaldi, but many are world premieres. They are indeed chamber-sized, with one or two singers and a small ensemble with cornetts and a continuo with keyboard and theorbo. The...
Read Less
