Talk:Vespro della Beata Vergine/Archive 1

Redirect?
Shouldn't there be a redirect to this page from "1610 Vespers" or something comparable? --Wspencer11 (talk to me...) 15:18, 16 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, there should be. There also probably doesn't need to be the "Monteverdi" at the end of the name, unless someone else wrote a Vespro della Beata Vergine in 1610. Mak (talk)  16:58, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Question
This seems to want a citation:


 * In scale, Monteverdi's Vespers was the most ambitious work of religious music before Bach. This 90-minute piece includes soloists, chorus, and orchestra and is comprised of both liturgical and extra-liturgical elements.

It is a very ambitious work, but I've heard other ambitious works as well from a little later. I'm thinking of Missa Salizburgensis in particular. Maybe some qualification is in order?

--♦♦♦Vlmastra♦♦♦ (talk) 03:57, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Map of performances in 2010
I put the map back, because it is remarkable that the MV were performed so many times in 2010, 400 years after publication (anniversary year). For example, in 2009, I found only 8 performances with online references. If I recall correctly, online searches found over 175 performances in 2010. This bit of excitement is nice to document, and the online map is an interesting way to show it. Perhaps the email address associated with the map could be edited away now, if folks find it problematic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.237.152.32 (talk) 20:31, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

List of recordings: overkill?
This article contains an unusually long and thorough list of recordings. As tastes and technology change, and CD's go in and out of availability, this will rapidly become outdated. I would suggest eliminating this, or maybe replacing it with a brief section listing one or two prominent recordings and quotations from critical reviews. Grommel (talk) 15:33, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

I've added the 1974 John Eliot Gardiner recording mainly for historical interest. It may the first recording. It may mark the introduction of the work into the performing repertoire. Perhaps we should remove the lists of soloists for brevity. Verbcatcher (talk) 03:43, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Performance history
When was the first modern performance? Could someone write a section on performance history?

The sleeve notes with the John Eliot Gardiner 1975 recording say "On 5th March 1964 a performance took place in the famous chapel of King's College Cambridge [conducted by JEG][...] the first occasion that the 'Vespers' had been performed in their entirety since the death of Walter Goehr". Goehr died in 1960.

I think the Vespers became increasingly popular from the mid seventies. I know of three performances by different groups in 1973/4 (I sang in one). The increasing popularity was probably driven by the availability of a modern performing edition. Did JEG edit an edition? Verbcatcher (talk) 05:10, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Apologies for inadvertently deleting this page on 7 Dec 2013 at 10.31 GMT and thanks to Melbourne Star for pointing this out.

I will try again, using the preface to the Stevens edition of 1960 andwhat I can find of Kurtzman and Wellham.

Denis Stevens argued in a performing edition of the score for Novello in 1960, which he recorded for Vanguard in 1967, that the sacred concertos or motets (the presence of which in Monteverdi's publication is now seen to have been an innovation) were not envisaged for performance with Monteverdi's main setting, though, except in one case where the composer extends the usual liturgical text, they are liturgically correct and belong to the Vespers service. He argues that their keys are inappropriate in the musical context of the time. (Stevens seems later to have changed his mind about the sacred concertos and included them in a revised edition of 1994) Walter Goehr had performed most of the publication (I remember hearing what memory said were his LPs in 1956, but Kurtzman does not list them, and I can't find any other listing, so I suppose what I heard may well have been the Grischkat recording, though I certainly later heard a Goehr broadcast) For many of my generation these were the first revelation of the Vespers. If you accept Stevens's original view, it follows that what we now hear as Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610, since Goehr's practice, modified by, for example, Leo Schrade, has clearly won out in modern performance, is essentially a slowly-evolved mid twentieth-century construct, and a performance of the music in a publication - not an integrated liturgical or non liturgical score (as, for example "Orfeo" is) at all. It might be worth mentioning this point, since- among other things- it does cast some light on what is accepted these days as "scholarly" performance practice. DelahaysDelahays (talk) 11:13, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

It might also be worth remembering that Goehr's performances used, in what may have been his own orchestrations, the text of the edition prepared by Hans F Redlich in 1934, (and based on the 1932 publication of the music in the collected Monteverdi edition by Gian Francesco Malipiero, which Redlich seems to have thought needed making performable in modern conditions, by, among other things, omitting two psalms and reordering the other pieces) published in 1949 and in the interim performed in Germany and Switzerland including a performance on Swiss Radio under Scherchen, and thus after the first UK performance arranged, at Goehr's suggestion, through Morley College (where Michael Tippett was then a major figure - Goehr recorded his Concerto for Double String Orchestra) in 1946, followed by a BBC Third Programme broadcast in 1947. Another edition, by Leo Schrade, then in the USA, who bitterly attacked the 1953 Vox recording under Hans Grischkat and Redlich's edition, both of which he regarded as "romantic", and over-broad in tempo, was later, by 1956, recorded under Anthony Lewis for Oiseau-Lyre, in a version which is now accepted as the first complete recording - I'm afraid I don't have a more accurate date, and I don't know Schrade's edition. From the currently available mp3 snippets on iTunes it sounds - on modern instruments - pretty weighty, but was then regarded a much lighter and faster than anything before. He seems, as the recording confirms, however, to have regarded the vespers as a single integrated musical conception to be performed in Monteverdi's published order. Delahays94.192.64.37 (talk) 12:51, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

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Clarifications needed
A few things need clarification or explanation: This probably means a papal audience, if so we should say so. Other dignitaries might hold audiences. This is sourced to a book that I don't have.
 * Monteverdi travelled to Rome hoping to submit the publication during an audience.


 * Falsobordone is an obscure term that we should clarify, a wikilink is insufficient. Would 'falsobordone (recitation)' be accurate and sufficient, or possibly 'falsobordone (a style of recitation)'?

Verbcatcher (talk) 08:54, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Monody should also be clarified, particularly as it may be confused with monophony. Perhaps 'monody (a solo melodic line with instrumental accompaniment)'.


 * Thanks for the comments, - I am not sure. If we link to symphony, we don't also add an explanation, which would be boring for those who already know, and the others really get it with the first line for falsobordone, and the second for monody. Will think about it, though. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:31, 31 August 2019 (UTC)


 * I now looked up papal audience, which is only a redirect to audience (meeting), and the papal section is named Holy See, which some readers may not even be aware means that, and the section begins with dress code. I am not sure a link will help, but will add "papal" to the article, even if I think what else in the sentence the Pope is mentioned. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:35, 31 August 2019 (UTC)


 * The general reader with an interest in classical music can be expected to be familiar with 'symphony', but not with these terms. I am seeking to apply this guideline from Manual of Style/Linking:
 * Do not unnecessarily make a reader chase links: if a highly technical term can be simply explained with very few words, do so.
 * Verbcatcher (talk) 10:36, 31 August 2019 (UTC)


 * I'm perhaps blind for the difference between symphony and monody in terms of being known or not, - could you please add these explanations as you see fit? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:18, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Importance
A work of this historical significance should not be classified as of "low importance". I've reclassified it as "high". Any reasoned objections? Brianboulton (talk) 15:38, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
 * this is a work of great significance on the history of European music, but of minor importance in the history of Italy and of Christianity. The ratings should indicate the importance of our topic in relation to each Wikiproject. My assessments are:
 * WikiProject Italy: low or mid, see WikiProject Italy/Assessment. Possibly not sufficiently relevant to Italy to be in this Wikiproject. Not a work that a student of Italian culture would necessarily be familiar with.
 * WikiProject Christian Music: high or mid, see WikiProject Christian music/Assessments. However, it may not be a good fit to this Wikiproject, which seems to be focused on modern music.
 * WikiProject Christianity: mid or low, see WikiProject Christianity/Assessment. Does not appear to be of high importance in the history of Christian theology or worship.
 * Verbcatcher (talk) 03:27, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Regarding your last point: the composition was a game-changer for Christian worship. Before it, prima pratica was the dominant paradigm for church music: no other composition was thus emblematic in paving the way for seconda pratica to become its replacement. In simpler words, no other composition thus strongly marks the pivotal point where (lively) baroque music became acceptable for Christian worship, pushing the era where (comparatively rather static and abstract) polyphony had its heyday for that purpose to an end. That being said, I could not find "high importance in the history of Christian theology or worship" as a criterion at WikiProject Christianity/Assessment. Its "Mid" description seems to fit best imho ("...a topic that is important to at least one field within the broad field of Christianity..."), the "... field ..." being Christian music. The topic of the transition from polyphony to baroque being marked by the composition may however be a bit more elaborated in the Wikipedia article: that would certainly be a point to be considered if this were ever to go from GA to FA. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:22, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Regarding the first point (WikiProject Italy): "High" (Topics that are very notable within Italy, and not unheard of outside of it, and can be reasonably expected to be included in any print encyclopedia) seems to fit best imho. This would put the importance label for this WikiProject at the same level as, say, the Villa Rotunda. May be a student of Italian culture never heard about 16th century rural architecture in the Veneto, maybe they never heard about 17th century Venetian church music, but if they do there is hardly a better example of the former than the Rotunda, or than Monteverdi's Vespro in the latter case. Thus I'd rate the Vespro at the same level as the Rotunda for this WikiProject, which is "high". --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:51, 13 November 2019 (UTC)


 * for comment. Brianboulton (talk) 12:13, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you, but I really don't care much about these classes, and don't know who does. It's one of the most important compositions, ever, but what does it mean for Italy? - I'm in the middle of a little article about a Britten composition, which I feel I have to write for his birthday, after the one planned for that day is on the Main page already today, - that's more important for me ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:17, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Gaps
Two intertwined issues of instrumentation and chiavette haven't been covered yet: a reader may be left wondering at the labels "Cornetto", "Fifaro" "Trombone" & "Flauto" in the partbook image, and transposition of the high-clef movements bears quite a bit on the overall structure and its climaxes. I've added a few things under "Further reading". Sparafucil (talk) 22:12, 22 April 2020 (UTC)