Malamut: Tatiana Daubek / Myers: Stark Photography / Brailey: Miranda Loud
Sackbut player Liza Malamut, left; sopranos Arwen Myers and Sarah Brailey; and conductor Andrew Megill.
In 1600s Italy, the name Claudio Monteverdi was sometimes voiced with contempt in the music world. Music theorists of the day accused him of breaking the rules of harmony and counterpoint. But Monteverdi held firm and broke these rules if the music he composed helped express the emotion of the text. He was a Renaissance maverick, and the beginning of opera is accredited to him.
On May 18 and 19, the Madison Bach Musicians will perform Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, his groundbreaking sacred work, in Madison’s First Congregational Church. Trevor Stephenson, MBM’s artistic director, says that First Congregational is an acoustic marvel: “It’s almost an 18th-century design and provides warmth of sound as well as clarity.”
Vespers is the name for an evening prayer service in the Catholic Church. Monteverdi most likely wrote the Vespers in Mantua, Italy, while he was Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga’s director of music. It was a prestigious job, but he often complained of being overworked and underpaid.
The Vespers, written to honor the Blessed Virgin, runs about 90 minutes and is sung in Latin. The translation will be provided. This performance is also a celebration of MBM’s 20th anniversary as Madison’s champions of early music.
Andrew Megill, director of choral organizations at Northwestern University, will conduct nine singers and 15 period instrumentalists in this revolutionary creation. “Megill is recognized worldwide as one of the premier choral conductors, and he specializes in challenging works such as the Vespers,” says Stephenson. Megill will also determine which instruments play what, and when. “While the notes that Monteverdi wants played are definite, the instruments that play what, when, are up for grabs,” says Stephenson. “Sometimes it’s viola da gamba and the organ. Other times it will be just the theorbos,” an instrument related to the lute. It’s Megill’s job to figure this out and make his own choices.
“Vespers has 13 sections that intersperse psalms with motets and a sonata,” says Stephenson. Monteverdi fused the old Medieval plainchant with new instrumental combinations and florid vocal lines. The Vespers’ opening instrumental fanfare is similar to the opening fanfare in Monteverdi’s opera L’Orfeo, which premiered in 1607. “Blending operatic with religious music was revolutionary in Monteverdi’s day,” says Stephenson.
Also included in Vespers is a sensual love poem from the Old Testament “Song of Solomon.” “What that’s doing in Vespers is anyone’s guess,” says Stephenson. “Mixing psalms with love poetry was also revolutionary.”
While echoes of the first performance of the Vespers faded long ago, the Madison Bach Musicians will bring the piece into the present with Baroque instruments and vocal techniques. Among the instruments are theorbos, lutes with long bass strings. “A good theorbo player drives the show,” says Stephenson. “They were the Elvises of the Renaissance.”
Stephen Alltop, a specialist in historical performance practices, will play a chamber organ he will bring from Chicago. Stephenson will play a 1605 Venetian-style harpsichord built by Madison’s Norman Sheppard, an expert in hand-built harpsichords. “These musicians, who come from all over the U.S. and one from the UK, are incredible virtuosos on these instruments, and they have trained since they were teenagers,” says Stephenson.
The performance features soloists but no lead singer, even though Sarah Brailey, a Grammy award-winning soprano on the voice faculty at UW-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music, will participate. The show will be a group effort.
Monteverdi dedicated the Vespers to Pope Paul V and took the printed music to the Vatican himself. His trek, about 300 miles south from Mantua to Rome, was fraught with bad roads and bandits. But Monteverdi hoped to impress potential employers, maybe even the Pope, with a glimpse into the music of the future.
“Vespers is so inspired and organically constructed that nearly everyone who has heard it live remembers when and where that was,” says Stephenson. “It’s simply thrilling to hear, and it is our pleasure and honor to present it to the Madison community.”
Tickets to the May 18 and 19 performances can be purchased at madisonbachmusicians.org; a livestream option is available for the May 18 performance only, which can be watched on demand for the following two weeks.
