Claudio Monteverdi Vespro della Beata Vergine Ludus Modalis Bruno Boterf Contents Programme Ensemble English text German text French text Sung texts Imprint CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI (1567-1643) Vespro della Beata Vergine (Venice 1610) THE VERSION WITHOUT CONCERTATO INSTRUMENTS DIE VERSION OHNE KONZERTIERENDE INSTRUMENTE LA VERSION SANS INSTRUMENTS CONCERTANTS CD 1 1. INTONATIO Deus in adjutorium meum intende (VB) 0:09 2. RESPONSORIUM Domine ad adjuvandum me festina a sei voci (tutti) 1:09 3. ANTIPHONA Dum esset rex (BB, VB, SG, BD) 0:22 4. PSALMUS 109 Dixit Dominus a sei voci (tutti) 7:46 5. ANTIPHONA Dum esset rex (BB, VB, SG, BD) 0:25 6. CONCERTO Nigra sum mottetto ad una voce (BB, JLH, MDP) 3:14 7. ANTIPHONA Laeva ejus (BB, VB, SG, BD) 0:21 8. PSALMUS 112 Laudate pueri a otto voce sole nell'organo (tutti) 6:55 9. ANTIPHONA Laeva ejus (BB, VB, SG, BD) 0:23 10. CONCERTO Pulchra es a due voci (AM, KID, JLH, AMB) 3:49 11. ANTIPHONA Nigra sum (BB, VB, SG, BD) 0:26 12. PSALMUS 121 Laetatus sum a sei voci (tutti) 7:51 13. ANTIPHONA Nigra sum (BB, VB, SG, BD) 0:30 14. CONCERTO Duo seraphim a tre voci (BB, VB, SG, AMB) 6:20 15. ANTIPHONA Jam hiems transiit (BB, VB, SG, BD) 0:26 16. PSALMUS 126 Nisi Dominus a dieci voci (tutti) 4:58 17. ANTIPHONA Jam hiems transiit (BB, VB, SG, BD) 0:29 18. CONCERTO Audi coelum ad una voce sola, poi nella fi ne à sei voci (VB, BB — 7:36 AM, EP, SG, BD, MH, AMB, JLH) 19. ANTIPHONA Speciosa facta es (BB, VB, SG, BD) 0:24 20. PSALMUS 147 Lauda Jerusalem a sette voci (tutti) 5:08 21. ANTIPHONA Speciosa facta es (BB, VB, SG, BD) 0:29 TOTAL 59:20 CD 2 1. Toccata avanti il recercar (AMB) 1:02 (Girolamo Frescobaldi, Fiori Musicali, Venice 1635) 2. Recercar con obligo di cantar la quinta parte senza toccarla (AM ,EP, KID, 2:57 (Girolamo Frescobaldi, Fiori Musicali, Venice 1635) ADP, VH, FP, AMB) 3. HYMNUS Ave maris stella a otto voci (CB, ADP, BD — tutti) 8:31 4. ANTIPHONA Beatam me dicent omnes generationes (BB) 0:23 5. Magnifi cat secondo a sei voci (tutti) 18:22 TOTAL 31:17 LUDUS MODALIS ANNE MAGOUËT (AM) Superius KAOLI ISSHIKI-DIDIER (KID) EDWIGE PARAT (EP) ALICE DUPORT-PERCIER (ADP) MÉLUSINE DE PAS (MDP) CORINNE BAHUAUD (CB) Altus ALICE HABELLION (AH) BRUNO BOTERF (BB) Tenor VINCENT BOUCHOT (VB) SERGE GOUBIOUD (SG) MATTHIEU HEIM (MH) Bassus JEAN-CLAUDE SARRAGOSSE (JCS) BENOÎT DESCAMPS (BD) ANNE-MARIE BLONDEL (AMB) Organ (after Costanzo Antegnati, Bernard Boulay 2011) JEAN-LUC HO (JLH) Harpsichord (gut-strung, David Boinnard 2011) Harpsichord (brass-strung, Ryo Yoshida 2006) FRANCK POITRINEAU (FP) Bass sackbut (after Georg Nikolaus Oller, Ewald Meinl 2013) VOLNY HOSTIOU (VH) Bass cornett (after Marin Mersenne, Roland Wilson 2012) MÉLUSINE DE PAS (MDP) Bass viol (after Henry I Jay, Sylvie Pham 2016) www.ludusmodalis.com 4 ^menu LUDUS MODALIS is a professional ensemble of fi ve to twelve singers formed around the tenor Bruno Boterf. The group focuses principally on polyphonic Renaissance and early Baroque repertoire, with incursions into contemporary music. Apart from the absence of a conductor in the standard sense, the ensemble's specifi city and its 'sound blend' are the fruits of thoroughgoing attention to the parameters of a cappella polyphony: the develop- ment of an intonation aimed towards achieving a clarity of harmonic intervals; the attention paid to the text on the basis of the declamation and historical pronunciation; and the richness of the sonority achieved through the use of a variety of vocal timbres and colours, as well as a subtle mix of female, male, and even children's voices. Ludus Modalis has been invited to perform during regular concert seasons and important festivals throughout Europe and Canada. After his university musicological studies, BRUNO BOTERF chose to concentrate on singing, rapidly establish- ing himself alongside the leading musical directors of the Bach cantatas, Handel oratorios, the sacred works of Monteverdi, Cavalli, Mozart and Rossini. At the same time, he familiarised himself with the mysteries of medieval music, working with Anne-Marie Deschamps and Marcel Pérès, as well as performing contemporary music with the Groupe vocal de France. He has participated in several premieres with the ensembles 2e2m and Itinéraire, notably for Radio France. He has also appeared on stage in numerous opera productions under musical directors such as Jean-Claude Malgoire, William Christie, Marc Minkowski, and Hervé Niquet, among others. Passionate about Renaissance and early Baroque music, Bruno Boterf has immersed himself in Seicento repertoire, working with ensembles such as Akadêmia, Les Witches, William Byrd and La Fenice, and as part of the duo A doi tenori (with Gilles Ragon). Within French repertoire, he pays particular attention to his favourite: the Air de Cour from the late sixteenth century. Holder of a Certifi cat d'Aptitude in early music, Bruno Boterf has taught at the Tours Conservatoire, helping establish a class in interpretation of Renaissance vocal music. He regularly contributes as a teacher in early-music singing at the Conservatoires supérieurs of Paris, Lyon and Liège, and to master-classes dedicated to Renaissance polyphony. This pedagogical experience, together with twenty years' devotion to the projects of Ensemble Clément Janequin (until 2007), led him to form the ensemble Ludus Modalis. He has made numerous recordings for Harmonia Mundi, Alpha, Ricercar, l'Empreinte digitale, Erato, CBS, and Auvidis, as well as more recently with Ludus Modalis for Ramée. 5 6 musicum, among other examples) has undoubtedly VESPRO DELLA BEATA VERGINE contributed to forging a representation of early Ba- roque church music characterised by monumentality, Recent years have seen a renewed interest in the which however is far from being representative of the different versions of the operatic works of Rameau and practices of more modest institutions. For example, Lully. Similarly, prestigious productions of Mozart op- Venice was not the only centre of polychoral music, eras now offer alternative arias that audiences do not a genre also cultivated in Padua (where it probably expect, as in the staging of Le Nozze di Figaro at New originated), Treviso, Verona and Bergamo with less York's Metropolitan Opera in 1998. Today's perform- substantial performing and spatial resources. ers are more willing to distance themselves from the work in its version judged to be the most 'fi nished', as St Mark's Basilica in Venice offers one of the most opposed to a no doubt Romantic vision that elevated elaborate manifestations of vocal music in parts, with that version to the rank of an immutable monument the use of instrumental doublings and of a choir of (one may think, for example, of the many versions of ripieni as against the choir of favoriti made up of solo- Bruckner's symphonies). Such an approach is made ists. Conversely, when small churches performed mu- possible by conducting a 'genetic' study of the work sic in separate parts, they employed singers for some and questioning all its editorial parameters: the work parts and used the organ to fi ll in the missing voices. as it is published in score alone cannot take into ac- This practice gradually led to the birth of the basso count a reality of practices that are known to have continuo, brought into being by the impossibility for been multiple, accentuating the disparity with the a smaller ensemble of performing vocal polyphony in work as it is performed. It is in this interpretative per- several parts: Lodovico Viadana, maestro di cappella of spective that Monteverdi's Vespro della Beata Vergine the Cathedral of San Pietro in Mantua from 1594 to (Vespers of the Blessed Virgin) is presented here. 1597, was one of the fi rst to take account of this situ- ation in the preface to his Cento Concerti Ecclesiastici The sacred music of the Seicento provided ma- op. 12 (1602). So there were many monasteries and terial that could be adapted to different practical per- convents that made use of polyphony – and all sacred forming conditions; such fl exibility was facilitated, in polyphony was considered accessible to them – with particular, by publication in separate parts. Our fas- performing practices that would seem surprising today cination with the imposing ensembles of the sixteenth for their alterations of the original text. and seventeenth centuries (the choirs of the Sistine Chapel or St Mark's Basilica in Venice, the specifi ca- The Vespro, published in 1610, belongs to Mon- tions given by Michael Praetorius in his Syntagma teverdi's Mantuan years. He still occupied the position 7 of maestro della musica at the court of the Gonzagas, What we now commonly call the 'Vespers' con- whereas the sacred music performed in the ducal chapel sists of a set of fi ve psalm settings (Dixit Dominus, of Santa Barbara was more specifi cally the responsibility Laudate pueri, Lætatus sum, Nisi Dominus and Lauda of his colleague Giovanni Gastoldi (c.1554-1609). The Jerusalem), each of which is answered by concerti sacri collection of Sanctissimæ Virgini missa... ac Vesperæ... on texts inspired by the Old Testament, chiefl y the cum nonnullis sacris concentibus... (Mass and Vespers Song of Songs (Nigra sum, Pulchra es, Duo seraphim of the Blessed Virgin, with several sacred concertos), in and Audi cœlum), and the Sonata sopra Sancta Maria. which the Vespers setting stricto sensu appears, consti- Monteverdi also includes a setting of the hymn Ave tutes a true 'portfolio', a synthesis of prima and seconda maris stella and two versions of the Magnifi cat. prattica.