BAL Monteverdi Vespers of 1610

[Flosshilde]

We had the same post after SHs Pargolegi BAL back in spring. Surely there is no need to bring this back again?

As I said then, it wasn’t a crime against any other persons but more a mistake and he paid for it. I don’t think we should expect him, or anybody who has made a mistake to live with the record hanging round his neck for the rest of their lives.

Hmm, not a crime against any other person? Well, not if you mean assaulting someone, but the books were accessible to anyone who needed to study them; they are presumably now only available to the collectors who bought them, so it's a crime against those students & scholars who might have benefitted from them. And there are many people who need to pay their mortgage. At least he was employed & should have been able to pay it from his salary. I don't think it was a 'mistake', but a deliberate act of theft.

[Bryn]

Certainly a crime was committed, and the conviction for that crime, for which a 2 year custodial sentence was imposed, became spent after a period of 10 years. The perpetrator has now been now officially rehabilitated. Beware of any libel that might be committed here in relation to the person concerned.

[umslopogaas]

No particular post

I've scanned through all the posts on this thread and havent noticed any recognition of the two versions I have.

- Jurgen Jurgens (sorry, cant do the umlauts, I suppose it should be Juergen Juergens, but I'm an innocent abroad when I wander into German orthographic precision) on Telefunken Das Alte Werk LP

- Denis Stevens on Vanguard LP

The Jurgens version is the one I know and love, its the version from which I got to know the work.

About the Stevens version I honestly cannot remember a thing, though I've no doubt its worthy enough, its got the wonderful voice of Nigel Rogers apart from anything else. But so has Jurgens, The Vespers must have been a bit of a speciality for Rogers.

Any fans of Jurgens out there?

Jurgens recording must have got onto digital format, almost everything has. Wonderful El Greco painting on the box cover.

[johnb]

they are presumably now only available to the collectors who bought them

I don't want to further this particular discussion but on a point of fact, as of 2006, 73 of the 74 stolen books had been recovered by Oxford's Christ Church College. The Nippon Dental University were refusing to return the last remaining book. [Source - Times Higher Educational Supplement, May 2006]

[BBMmk2]

Hmm, ardcarp, your enthusiasm for the NCO set is so persuasive, I think I'm going to order it right away! I'm sure the choir is too busy to contemplate such a project, but I would love Higginbottom to do a Bach cantata cycle with all male voices.

Meantime, all this talk of Venice is very appropriate, as I am currently working my way through Robert King's 11 disc set of the Vivaldi Sacred Music, and very enjoyable it is, too. I got it for under 40 euros on Amazon and am well pleased!

Ah, that Vivialdi set, is certainly worth buying. Magical!

[doversoul1]

Flosshilde
Of course it was a deliberate theft. I have no intention of defending what he did. All I wanted to say was that bringing this matter up in this way would benefit no one.

Johnb
It that where it is? What an odd place…

[johnb]

It that where it is? What an odd place…

The book in question is Andreas Vesalius' "De Humani Corporis Fabrica" ( On the Structure of the Human Body), one of the seminal works in the development of our understanding of the human body. (Many of stolen books were revered seminal works, e.g. Newton's Principia Mathematica.)

[MickyD]

Umslopogaas,

I had that LP version of the Jurgens with the El Greco cover, too. It did make it to CD, though sadly the El Greco didn't. I notice it featured Nigel Rogers. Obviously it is now a rarity, as a second hand copy is now selling for 115 euros on French Amazon!

[Keraulophone]

Re. the NCO/Higginbottom discs, given that hmv.com are offering for (just) less than a tenner, including p&p, I'll give the direct route am miss, thanks.

...but by ordering from New College, you would be contributing a tiny bit more to their well managed and much needed Development Fund. Their treble soloists are astonishingly fine. (Although I suppose you could also claim that you wish to support HMV, whose stores are suffering from internet sales.)

[DracoM]

I liked Heighes' round-up. He set himself a virtually imposible task, but then again, reviewing this work IS a next to imposible task the variety on offer being so wide.

But as for NCO, well, having already got Stubbs / Gardiner / Schneidt / Parrott / McCreesh in this repoertoire and having bought the NCO version a month ago, all I can say is that it is THE version that continues to give pleasure and that I keep coming back to.

It is unfussy, uncluttered, expertly sung by gifted singers in all voices, in a very decent acoustic [ not NCO chapel btw but elsehere in N.Oxford], and leading with two tenors particularly that seem to me pretty well unrivalled, for all the glossy names used elsewhere. Mulroy sounds very much like a young Nigel Rogers - I can think of no greater praise - and I absolutely endorse ardcarp's praise for Tom Hobbs - a name to watch indeed. And the instrumental ensemble is discreet until it really matters, and lifts the spirit when they do blaze forth.

For me, the single finest piece of Monteverdi 1610 singing is on the other all-male Schneidt version - that astonishing duet by Paul Esswood and Kevin Smith on 'Pulchra Es'. Defies logic.

[Ferretfancy]

umslopogaas,

I'm glad to see another fan of the Jurgen Jurgens version. It was received enthusiastically when it first appeared, and just as you do , I still enjoy it very much in its original LP
form. No doubt there are faults that today's purists might carp about, and certainly the instrumentalists were less experienced back then , but I love the zest and enthusiasm.
I haven't heard the Denis Stevens version, but I seem to recall that he left out some numbers that he deemed liturgically incorrect, and thus deprived us of some great music.

I see that the JEG performance at the penultimate night of this year's Proms is being broadcast on Wednesday evening, it was quite something to see and hear standing in the Arena at the RAH. It was the first live performance I had heard since the famous York Minster performance under Walter Goehr more than fifty years ago.

[Nick Armstrong]

I don't want to miss this. I'll be driving down to East Sussex with Frau Alpensinfonie, so I'll volunteer to be at the wheel. (Whoever is driving chooses the radio channel.) :)

Did you make it ok Alps?

I listened to this BAL this morning, and also finished listening to the complementary Tribune des Critiques de Disques on the Vespers. I don't want to give away too much about the latter as I know some here may not yet have found time to hear it (the full 2 hours can be a challenge, though the iPod version is my preferred way, listening in chunks during the week), and to reveal the winner too early spoils the 'blind tasting' aspect of the French programme. I'll just say that there wasn't too much overlap between the two - two of the 6 versions highlighted by Tribune were the object of focus by Simon Heighes and between those two, the verdict was more or less as per BAL (and contributions above). But the winning version on Tribune was only mentioned fleetingly by SH.

I see in fact that I do not own a recording of the Vespers - I bought the Gardiner, but could never love it and clearly returned it or disposed of it somehow. As mentioned earlier, this is really is piece I prefer to hear live, not sure I need a recording of it. However I am tempted by the new Higginbottom at a low price, and the Stubbs sounded great to my ears.

It was a good programme - but I found myself wishing that, given the variety of the piece and the number of available interpretations, it had been given the longer (55 - 60 minute) treatment accorded to certain other works e.g. the Mörike Lieder.

[umslopogaas]

M41 Ferretfancy

You are right, I hadnt realised (or had forgotten, its a long time since I played it) how much Stevens omitted from Monteverdi's Vespers. I've just compared Stevens with Jurgens and he misses out:

3. Nigra sum
5. Pulchra es
7. Duo seraphim
9. Audi caelum
11. Sancta Maria ora pro nobis

In view of which, I'm really not sure I'll bother to keep it!

[Alain Maréchal]

M41 Ferretfancy

You are right, I hadnt realised (or had forgotten, its a long time since I played it) how much Stevens omitted from Monteverdi's Vespers. .......
In view of which, I'm really not sure I'll bother to keep it!

Stevens' theory was that the publication we know was a compilation, and that performing only those liturgical parts appropriate to Vespers was valid. It was my first recorded performance (It is lurking somewhere in my scattered collection). I also am a fan of the Jurgens, and it cannot be 'first love' syndrome, having already known the Stevens, earlier live performances by JEG, plus one that sticks in my memory by a very large and unauthentic 'choral society ' (presumably as a change from 'Messiah') possibly in the English Midlands. I borrowed the Alessandrini and was disappointed-it sounded 'domestic' to me.

East Sussex seems popular this Christmas - I drove North to it yesterday! By the way, I seem everybody is complaining about unpreparedness: there are road and airport closures elsewhere in Northern Europe, so its not just the U.K. which is unprepared.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I don't want to miss this. I'll be driving down to East Sussex with Frau Alpensinfonie, so I'll volunteer to be at the wheel. (Whoever is driving chooses the radio channel.)

Did you make it ok Alps?

We never even set out. :( But I have the podcast of BAL.