Monteverdi: Sacred Vocal Music

Think Venice; think Monteverdi; think the sonorous splendour of his Vespers of 1610. And then think again. This recording brings us Monteverdi’s small-scale psalms, motets and hymns which he wrote for relatively modest services, where the talents of individual singers were on display, rather than the great choral forces of St Mark’s. In the early 1980s, Emma Kirkby spearheaded a chamber group to showcase these sacred solos, duets and trios, which they infuse with all the secular charm Monteverdi intended. The singers vividly contrast the three settings of Psalm 110 Confitebor tibi Domine, with Kirkby dancing her way through the third to one of Monteverdi’s catchiest melodies. In Ab aeterno ordinata sum—describing the creation of the world—bass David Thomas draws inspiration (and plenty of gravitas) from the theatrical style of Monteverdi’s first opera Orfeo.