With the Vespro della Beata Vergine, Monteverdi created one of the first monuments to European sacred music. At once meditative and theatrical, his score is conceived as a sum of prayers that freely calls upon the expression of joy and perhaps even the greatest sensuality. The baroque feeling of the music is already fully present in these truly virtuosic vocal pages, which alternate with moments of profound depth entrusted to the instruments. Keen to recreate the spatial setting of the musical sources as it would have been at St Mark’s Basilica in Venice, Leonardo García Alarcón will reveal all the beauty of this music as he directs his Cappella Mediterranea and his Namur Chamber Choir.

Following sumptuous performances by John Eliot Gardiner and Raphaël Pichon at the Royal Chapel, here is a new facet of the Vespers seen through Leonardo García Alarcón’s resolutely Mediterranean eyes.

Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)

Vespro della Beata vergine SV 206 (1610)

1. Intonatio « Deus in adjutorium – Domine ad adjuvandum »
2. Psalmus 109 « Dixit Dominus »
3. Concerto « Nigra Sum »
4. Psalmus 112 « Laudate pueri Dominum »
5. Concerto « Pulchra es »
6. Psalmus 121 « Laetatus sum »
7. Concerto « Duo seraphim »
8. Antiphona « Corde et animo »
9. Psalmus 126 « Nisi Dominus »
10. Concerto « Audi coelum »
11. Sonata sopra « Sancta Maria »
12. Psalmus 147 « Lauda Jerusalem »
13. Hymnus « Ave maris stella »
14. Magnificat