★★★★☆
Claudio Monteverdi left Mantua because his new duke didn’t much fancy opera — he probably thought it was a passing fad that would never last — and the story goes that the Vespers of the Blessed Virgin was a kind of musical CV. Armed with the Vespers, Monteverdi could get noticed elsewhere. It worked and the composer washed up at one of the most glamorous churches in Christendom, St Mark’s Basilica in Venice.
The piece is a box of treasures, but they have to twinkle alongside each other, as the focus changes from the span of heaven, illuminated by rapt angels (Duo Seraphim), to the bustling chatter of Nisi Dominus and the intimate confession of Nigra Sum. Making its Proms debut in the Monteverdi anniversary year, a French group, the Pygmalion ensemble, and its director, Raphaël Pichon, dared to broaden the piece, adding sung antiphons, a plainsong curtain-raiser and a reprise at the close, a sung version of the toccata that (normally) opens the work.
This gave the Vespers a more reverential feel, casting it as a devotional rite, not so much an attempt to tame the Albert Hall as to shrink it, pulling us in closer as the faithful congregation. Pichon’s expertly drilled singers, who carefully assumed different formations for each number, paid close attention to the text, sometimes at the expense of volume or decoration, but projecting freshly and honestly. It was the mysterious solemnity of “tres unum sunt” that stood out in Duo Seraphim; the confessional angst of “pro culpis remedium” that cast a guilty pallor over Audi Coelum.
In contrast to other groups that have established a precedent for sonic razzle-dazzle in this work, especially at this address, some of this felt rather meek. Yet the instrumental playing was superb — velvety sackbuts, sparkling recorders — and the interplay between soloists and the main choir was nicely done. Playing with spatial effects, including call and responses from the organ loft and the galleries, added the tingle factor. We finished refreshed, invigorated and very happy that Monteverdi left Mantua after all.