From Venice (to Rome), with love

I Fagiolini

Director - Robert Hollingworth

Benevoli - Missa Maria Prodigio Celeste - for 4 choirs

Monteverdi - Selected motets/psalms from 1610 Vespers

Carissimi - Jephte

1640s  St.Mark’s Venice  -  St Peter’s Rome

The Venetians’ love affair with multi-choirs had given way to virtuosic small ensembles and the intimate miniature.  Monteverdi was master of both.

In Rome Orazio Benevoli wrote outsize masses for four choirs for Michelangelo’s recently completed basilica of St Peter’s.  Choirs separated around the huge central altar tossed phrases from one to another, climaxing in magnificent tuttis: true surround sound.

The music was so successful that it was still being performed 100 years later.

“Benevoli’s Mass is remarkable… Sonic bliss… awash in gloriousness… both subtle and shocking… Like Italian sunshine… musical magic.”  Gramophone  ★★★★★

World renowned for both its performances of 'Colossal Baroque' and emotionally charged Monteverdi, I Fagiolini presents premiere performances of Benevoli's Missa Benevola alongside well-known Monteverdi motets - and Carissimi’s heart-rending saga, ‘Jephte’ - with one of the finest choruses of the entire 17th century.

The concerts mark the continuing release of I Fagiolini’s albums in its highly praised series of Benevoli multi-choir masses on CORO.  The first album was BBC Music Magazine’s April ’24 ‘Recording of the Month’.

"evocative word painting, ‘angelic’ vocal lines and rhythmic vitality and variety... The work engulfs the senses just as it must have done in Benevoli’s day in the echoing spaces of St Peter’s."  

BBC Music Magazine - Recording of the Month

Photos Monika S Jakubowska, from I Fagiolini's performance at King's Place, London.