CityLife

New London Consort: Monteverdi

THE office of Vespers was always meant to ensure that a good, hard-working monk should be ready for a sound night’s sleep, and it should be no surprise that even the grandest musical settings of it are noted more for their cumulative, satisfying impression than for any jaw-dropping drama.

But Philip Pickett and his New London Consort endeavour to inject as much variety of manner, as well as texture, into their concert version of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610.

Devotees of the composer and of its expert exponents (quite a number of the usual suspects among them, both singers and instrumentalists) were there in their small but enthusiastic numbers.

And Pickett’s approach ensured that the string of sacred songs and psalm settings, with the Magnificat to round them off, was as much of a concert as possible within the confines of modern scholarly practice.

Grand massed choir

(I can remember grand massed choir and modern orchestra versions from 40-odd years ago, but that was another world and probably no one would dream of realising the music in such a way now).

There were lively rhythms wherever justified (Laetatus Sum and Lauda Ierusalem, for instance) and effective emphasis on Monteverdi’s illustrative effects, such as the delicate unison of three voices in the reference to Trinitarian unity in Duo Seraphim.

And the most operatic piece of them all, Audi Coelum, with its off-stage echo voice matching the ‘echo’ plays on words in the text, was quite entertaining.

Towards the end, discreet doubling enhanced the impact of both voices and instrumentation, with the effect of building intensity at the same time as Monteverdi’s musical inventiveness grows.

Having recognised that, I felt the presentation of Lauda Ierusalem, with the counter-tenors of Christopher Robson and Mark Chambers dominating the texture, made such impact that anything after it was almost bound to be an anti-climax.

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