Claudio Monteverdi's sacred music has been ripe for a top-notch complete traversal such as it is now receiving from the King's Consort and conductor Robert King. As choirmaster of St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice for the last 30 years of his life, Monteverdi wrote a lot of sacred music and explored many of the myriad sonic configurations possible in that famously complex space. There's much to be learned about his compositional imagination by going beyond the Vespers and the few other pieces that have become well known. ...
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Claudio Monteverdi's sacred music has been ripe for a top-notch complete traversal such as it is now receiving from the King's Consort and conductor Robert King. As choirmaster of St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice for the last 30 years of his life, Monteverdi wrote a lot of sacred music and explored many of the myriad sonic configurations possible in that famously complex space. There's much to be learned about his compositional imagination by going beyond the Vespers and the few other pieces that have become well known. Volume three of the series includes a variety of motets from this later phase of Monteverdi's career; they involve performing forces ranging from a solo soprano plus continuo all the way up to a full choir plus four pairs of soloists and an orchestra. The appeal of this music lies mostly in the variety of antiphonal (call-and-answer) effects Monteverdi is able to exploit; he not only juxtaposes the usual paired-choirs and solo-choir combinations, but also distributes material between...
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