Vespro della Beata Vergine is a musical setting of the evening vespers on Marian feasts. Monteverdi composed the music while musician and composer for the Gonzagas, the dukes of Mantua. The composition is scored for up to ten vocal parts and instruments including cornettos, violins, viole da braccio, and basso continuo.
About Vespro della Beata Vergine in brief
Vespro della Beata Vergine is a musical setting of the evening vespers on Marian feasts, scored for soloists, choirs, and orchestra. Monteverdi composed the music while musician and composer for the Gonzagas, the dukes of Mantua. The libretto is compiled from several Latin Biblical and liturgical texts. No performance during the composer’s lifetime can be positively identified from surviving documents, though parts of the work might have been performed at the ducal chapels in Mantua and at San Marco in Venice. The composition is scored for up to ten vocal parts and instruments including cornettos, violins, viole da braccio, and basso continuo. In some recordings and performances, antiphons for a given occasion of the church year are added to create a liturgical Vespers service. The work received renewed attention from musicologists and performers in the 20th century. It is regarded as a unique milestone of music history, at the transition from Renaissance to Baroque. At the time, it was sung in Latin, as were all Catholic services at the time. The five psalms, a hymn and five Magnificat stands out for its assimilation of the old and the new styles of liturgical prayer. The first recording of excerpts from the Vesper was released in 1953; many recordings that followed presented all the music printed in 1610. He possibly completed the large-scale work in 1611 or 1612, and possibly completed it in 1612 or 1613.
The setting demonstrates his ability to assimilate both the new seconda pratica, such as in the emerging opera, and the old style of the prima praticsa, building p salms and Magnificats on the traditional plainchant as a cantus firmus. It was published in Venice nearly thirty years before his initial publications, and out out for nearly 30 years before he published his first opera, L’Orfeo, which premiered in 1607. The composer’s first opera was Dafne of 1597, which is now considered as an opera. In the new genre, a complete story was told through characters; as well as choruses and ensembles, the vocal parts included recitative, aria, and arioso. He was responsible for the duke’s sacred and secular music, in regular church services and soirées on Fridays, and for extraordinary events. The duke was quick to recognise the potential of this new musical form for bringing prestige to those willing to sponsor it. He travelled to Rome to deliver the composition to the Pope in person, and a partbook is held by the Vatican Library. The first recordings of excerpts were made in 1953, and many recordings of the music have been made since then, including some in the 1980s and 1990s. The piece was written in Latin and was written for the Santa Croce chapel at the palace of the Gonzaga dukes.
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This page is based on the article Vespro della Beata Vergine published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 05, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
