Monteverdi Vespers 1610

I Fagiolini dir. Robert Hollingworth

with the English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble

After nearly 40 years of well-documented performance, recording and film success with Monteverdi, I Fagiolini finally returns to his famous 1610 Vespers.  Often performed with choir, the piece works best as Monteverdi originally envisaged: a consort of dramatic solo singers, emotionally fully committed and expert in Monteverdi’s extremes of concerto-like writing.

I Fagiolini offers an intimate yet surprisingly powerful one-to-a-part performance of Monteverdi’s defining masterwork accompanied by wind, string and brass (with the English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble). Peerless technical control and dynamic improvisation produce a colourful and viscerally emotional reading: a 21st Century interpretation as the group approaches its 40th anniversary.

I Fagiolini director, Robert Hollingworth, observes: “Over different projects from The Full Monteverdi to our five albums of his music, I’ve watched these singers become world-class exponents of Monteverdi’s fearsome coloratura - but also at channelling the raw emotion in his music.  Our performance combines the full-on dramatic treatment that the music demands, with a lifetime’s experience of drawing out every dissonance, every semiquaver - every little trick of Monteverdi’s. The latest scholarship then helps us to row with the music not against it so we can do our job as powerfully and expressively as possible: with splendour, flair and sensual intimacy.”

"Utilising … the stage, galleries, … even directly behind the audience, this was a 3D, surround sound, high definition Vespers for the 21st Century… a sustained standing ovation for surely one of the most impressive performances so far this century.”  

Planet Hugill

Photos Monika S Jakubowska, from I Fagiolini's performance at King's Place, London.