At the head of her Concert d’Astrée, Emmanuelle Haïm continues her Monteverdi cycle with the Vespro della beata vergine, grandiose manifesto of the nascent baroque. Opening the way for the oratorios of Händel and the passions of Bach, Monteverdi artfully blends the contrasting currents that stimulated musical life at the start of the 17^th century. On the one hand, the strict but intoxicating early polyphony of his psalms, inherited from the Renaissance masters, and on the other, a modern style represented by his Marian antiennes where the solo voices are placed forward in a concertante manner. The torments of the human soul are depicted with acute expressiveness, and certain passages reveal a sensuality that is almost profane. Confronted with such audacity, we can imagine why Pope Paul V turned a deaf ear to the supplications of Monteverdi, who had come to offer this work and his services following his stay at the court of Gonzaga of Mantua. This Roman dream denied, it was to be Venice and opera to which Monteverdi would transport his theatre of passions.

With

Grace Davidson, Miriam Allan sopranos
Samuel Boden, Jeremy Budd, Joshua Ellicott, Matthew Long tenors
Marcus Farnsworth, Ben Davies barytones
William Gaunt, Jimmy Holliday basses
Le Concert d’Astrée, ensemble in residency at Lille Opera.

Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) Vespro della Beata Vergine (1610)