BAL Monteverdi Vespers of 1610

[BBMmk2]

Anyone else have the Higginbottom version?

[vinteuil]

Anyone else have the Higginbottom version?

BBM - i have it, and think it's one of the best. On this thread Ardcarp and DracoM have also praised it!

[ardcarp]

Whilst earlier I mentioned that Stevens 'omitted' a lot, I did not mean to diminish his original edition which made the Vespers available to lots of local choirs. In performance one had to do a certain amount of juggling about with instrumental parts. In a performance in Brum in the 60s we could only find one decent cornetto player, Don Smithers, who came for free. On his advice we used a soprano saxophone as the second player which matched amazingly well. I don't think the 'HIP' expression was used in those days. Just as well.

[umslopogaas]

M48 ardcarp

A soprano sax in the Vespers? Man, that's cool. Claudio would have approved, I'm sure.

The booklet accompanying the Jurgens LPs includes a scholarly article on the work and illustrates all the instruments used in the recording. The piffaro actually looks quite like a soprano sax to my non-musician's eyes.

[verismissimo]

I used to have the Stevens, but never warmed to it (tho not for textual reasons).

[Robyn]

Mystery recording of the vespers 1984-197

Hello it's now been over 25 years and I am still trying to track down this recording of the Vespers, which to this day remains my all time favourite. I heard it on the airwaves of the French arm of our national broadcaster CBC called Radio Canada.
I made a poor cassette recording of it and I've never been able to find a recording of this particular performance. Unfortunately I did not get the specifics of who the artists were and the venue. This was sometime between 1985 and 1987 (definitely not after 1987). If one of you sleuths can help me with this I would be infinitely grateful. :-)

[DracoM]

Dennis Stevens? Or is that too early?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Hello, Robyn.

I'm not sure if you heard a broadcast of a new recording made between those years, or if the broadcast was of an older recording.

If the former:
Andrew Parrott and the Taverner Consort recorded the Vespers (with plainchant and instrumental church sonatas between the "movements") in 1984
Phillippe Herreweghe recorded it in 1987.

The two are easy to tell apart, because Herreweghe used a larger choir (Parrott has a septet of soloists).

Hope this is of use to you: it's a glorious work!

[LeMartinPecheur]

The 1988 Penguin Guide lists five versions with the following star-ratings (*** was then their maximum): Parrott (HMV ***); Gardiner (Decca ***); Harnoncourt (Teldec **(*)); Herreweghe (Harmonia Mundi **) and Corboz (Erato *(*)). But even then there were plenty of decent versions that had fallen to the deletions axe-men (my own Regensberg Cathedral/ Schneidt LP set on Archiv for instance), and of course there could have been others only issued on your side of the pond. The 1984 Penguin had, in addition to the Decca Gardiner, a Teldec Jurgens version - **(*), an HMV Ledger one - **, and the above-mentioned Schneidt - ***.

To progress further you probably need to get specific about the choir (female sops or boys?), soloists, instrumental scorings on your tape.