Christmas Vespers in Venice

circa 1630

I Fagiolini

The English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble

Director – Robert Hollingworth

A spectacular Venetian recreation for 9 voices, 8 early brass, 2 baroque violins, theorbo, archlute, organ, harpsichord and plainchant choir.

Magnificent ceremonial music by the greatest composers of early Baroque Venice with Vespers Psalms by Monteverdi, from his famous 1610 collection. These are complemented by Gabrieli’s glorious 14-part Magnificat, throwing its sacred converation between three groups of voices and brass instruments.

Between these, virtuosic instrumental works and grand motets including ‘Quem vidistis pastores’, whose gleaming colours and high emotional charge rub off even on the lowly shepherds.

This programme was premiered at St.John’s Smith Square on December 14th to a capacity audience and tours in December 2005.

Venice , circa 1630: a city of splendour and luxury, serene and wealthy in its republican independence; a city of magnificent public events, revelling in a ceaseless stream of ceremonial pomp and ostentatious display. At its heart, the Piazza San Marco with its gilded basilica, a church which on no fewer than forty major feast days a year celebrated some of the most brilliant and lavish rites in Christendom. Enormous processionals began the ceremonies: robed clergy, ambassadors, papal nuncios, the Doge and Senate dressed in bright gowns, all moving in stately file from the Doge’s Palace to the great West door of the basilica, where music of unparalleled majesty greeted them, resounding from galleries and platforms spaced around the building.

No occasion was more splendid than Christmas Vespers, of which this programme is an imaginary recreation. For such a service the Doge and his fellow congregation could expect music of an ornateness and grandeur unique not only to Venice but to St Mark’s alone, provided by composers of the calibre of Giovanni Gabrieli and Claudio Monteverdi, often utilising multiple ensembles of solo voices and instruments. These were distributed on either side of the area by the altar and pala d’oro (the choir) in the house style of cori spezzati (‘separated choirs’). The effects the Venetian composers could achieve with so elaborate an array of musicians were momentous, as one awestruck English tourist, visiting another of the city’s main churches in 1608, attests: ‘the music…so good, so delectable, so rare, so admirable, so super excellent, that it did even ravish and stupifie all those strangers that never heard the like…I was for the time even rapt up with Saint Paul into the third heaven.’

Detailed Programme

Intonazione sul primo tono Andrea Gabrieli (Intonazioni di organo… libro primo, 1593)

Intonazione sul ottavo tono Andrea Gabrieli (Intonazioni di organo… libro primo, 1593)

Deus in adiutorium meum intende Claudio Monteverdi (Vespro della Beata Virgine, 1610)

Antiphon I – Rex pacificus

Psalm 109 - Dixit Dominus Claudio Monteverdi (Selva Morale e Spirituale, 1640-1)

Antiphon I - Rex pacificus

Benedicta sit sancta Trinitas Giovanni Bassano (Motteti, madrigali… diminuiti, 1591)

Psalm 110 - Confitebor tibi Claudio Monteverdi (Messi… e salmi, 1650)

Antiphon II – Magnificatus est

Plorabo die ac nocte Alessandro Grandi (Il quarto libro de motetti, 1616)

Psalm 111 - Beatus vir Claudio Monteverdi (Messi… e salmi, 1650)

Antiphon III – Completi sunt dies Mariae

Interval

Antiphon IV – Scitote quia prope est regnum Dei

Psalm 112 - Laudate pueri Claudio Monteverdi (Selva Morale e Spirituale, 1640-1)

Cantate Domino Francesco Rognoni (Canzoni a 4 & 8 voci, 1605)

Antiphon V – Levate capita vestra

Psalm 116 - Laudate Dominum Claudio Monteverdi (Messi… e salmi, 1650)

Quem vidistis pastores Giovanni Gabrieli (Symphoniae sacrae, 1615)

Capitulum

Hymn - Christe redemptor omnium Claudio Monteverdi (Selva Morale e Spirituale, 1640-1)

Antiphon – Cum ortus fuerit

This list of pieces must be confirmed with I Fagiolini before going to print.