Early Music Recordings as Mythography: Monteverdi and the ‘Other’ Vespers
Bartłomiej Gembicki
Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8489-6083
Abstract
In 1989, at St Mark’s Basilica in Venice, John Eliot Gardiner conducted and recorded Claudio Monteverdi’s Marian Vespers, published in 1610. Despite the print’s dedication to Pope Paul V, the three-year gap between the print being issued and Monteverdi taking up the post of maestro di cappella at St Mark’s and the considerable stylistic diversity of the pieces contained in that print, Gardiner considers Monteverdi’s Vespers as one coherent whole, for which the Venetian basilica was the target venue. Gardiner’s project has undoubtedly played a major role in how present-day audiences conceive of the 1610 Vespers. It has thus made a permanent mark on contemporary musical culture, as evidenced by the numerous reissues of the 1989 album and, most of all, productions by other musicians that associate the 1610 Vespers with St Mark’s.
This article discusses the concept of ‘Monteverdi’s Vespers’ as represented in contemporary record releases of the composer’s works. This concept refers both to Monteverdi’s Vespro della Beata Vergine, published in 1610, and to various modern compilations of his works which musicians, musicologists and producers refer to as ‘Vespers’. The great wealth of Vespers-related pieces held in libraries and archives still considerably outweighs the number of performances and recordings of those works. Monteverdi’s Vespers, on the other hand, make up the majority of existing recordings of seventeenth-century polyphonic Vespers and thus constitute a key point of reference. I analyse around 500 albums (not only with Vespers music) released between 1952 and 2019, focussing on their iconographic and typographic content, as well as their graphic designs, in an attempt to show how the modern vision of this repertoire came to be formed and what persons and places are associated with this current in the history of early music recording.
Keywords:
early music recordings, Claudio Monteverdi, Venice, St. Mark's church, John Eliot Gardiner, HI{, myths, Italian music, VespersReferences
Allinson, David. ‘Rediscovering Monteverdi, Sacred and Secular.’ Early Music 35, no. 2 (2007): 319–322.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/em/cam007
Google Scholar
Baroncini, Rodolfo and Marco di Pasquale, eds., Monteverdi a San Marco. Venezia 1613–1643. Lucca: Libreria Musicale Italiana, 2020.
Google Scholar
Bernstein, Jane A. ‘Publish or Perish? Palestrina and Print Culture in 16th-Century Italy.’ Early Music 35, no. 2 (2007): 225–236.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/em/cam028
Google Scholar
Bonta, Stephen. ‘Liturgical Problems in Monteverdi’s Marian Vespers.’ Journal of the American Musicological Society 20, no. 1 (1967): 87–106.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/jams.1967.20.1.03a00050
Google Scholar
Bonta, Stephen. ‘The Use of Instruments in Sacred Music in Italy 1560–1700.’ Early Music 18, no. 4 (1990): 519–536.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/earlyj/XVIII.4.519
Google Scholar
Borghetti, Vincenzo. ‘Purezza e trasgressione. Il suono del medioevo dagli anni cinquanta ad oggi.’ Semicerchio 44 (2011): 37–54.
Google Scholar
Burke, Peter. Eyewitnessing. The Uses of Images as Historical Evidence. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001.
Google Scholar
Butt, John. Playing with History. The Historical Approach to Musical Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511613555
Google Scholar
Dixon, Graham. ‘Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610: “Della Beata Vergine”?’ Early Music 15, no. 3 (1987): 386–90.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/earlyj/XV.3.386
Google Scholar
Edge, Kevin. The Art of Selling Songs. Graphics for the Music Business, 1690–1990. London: Futures Publications, 1991.
Google Scholar
Fenlon, Iain. ‘Venice. Theatre of the World.’ In: The Renaissance. From the 1470s to the End of the 16th Century, ed. Iain Fenlon, 102–132. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1989.
Google Scholar
Gembicki, Bartłomiej, ‘Psalmy, mity i memy. Nieszpory w Wenecji od Willaerta do Gardinera.’PhD dissertation, Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences, 2020.
Google Scholar
Haynes, Bruce. The End of Early Music. A Period Performer’s History of Music for the Twenty-First Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Google Scholar
Howard, Deborah. ‘Recordings of Music Written for St. Mark’s. An Architectural Historian’s View.’ In: Word, Image, and Song, eds. Rebecca Cypess, Beth L. Glixon and Nathan Link. Vol. 1, Essays on Early Modern Italy, 89–100. Rochester: The University of Rochester Press, 2013 (= Eastman Studies in Music 101).
Google Scholar
Hucke, Helmut. ‘Die falschlich so genannte “Marien-Vesper” von Claudio Monteverdi.’ In: Bericht über den Internationalen Musikwissenschaftlichen Kongress Bayreuth 1981, 295–305. Kassel: Barenreiter, 1984.
Google Scholar
Jones, Steve, and Martin Sorger. ‘Covering Music: A Brief History and Analysis of Album Cover Design.’ Journal of Popular Music Studies 11–12 (1999), 68–102.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1533-1598.1999.tb00004.x
Google Scholar
Koldau, Linda Maria. Die Venezianische Kirchenmusik von Claudio Monteverdi. Kassel: Barenreiter, 2005.
Google Scholar
Kurtzman, Jeffrey. ‘Monteverdi’s Missing Sacred Music. Evidence and Conjectures.’ In: The Musicologist and Source Documentary Evidence: A Book of Essays in Honour of Professor Piotr Poźniak on His 70th Birthday, eds. Zofia Fabiańska, Andrzej Sitarz, Piotr Wilk and Jakub Kubieniec, 187–208. Krakow: Musica Iagellonica, 2009.
Google Scholar
Kurtzman, Jeffrey. The Monteverdi Vespers of 1610. Music, Context, Performance. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Google Scholar
Kurtzman, Jeffrey. ‘Monteverdi’s Mass of Thanksgiving. Da Capo.’ In: Fiori musicali: Liber amicorum Alexander Silbiger, eds. Claire Fontijn and Susan Parisi, 95–128. Sterling Heights: Harmonie Park Press, 2010.
Google Scholar
Łubocki, Jakub Maciej. Okładka jako część dokumentu na przykładzie płyty gramofonowej w ujęciu bibliologicznym. Warszawa: Stowarzyszenie Bibliotekarzy Polskich, 2017.
Google Scholar
Milsom, John. ‘Sense and Sound in Richafort’s Requiem.’ Early Music 30, no. 3 (2002): 447–463.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/em/30.3.447
Google Scholar
Moore, James H. ‘The “Vespero Delli Cinque Laudate” and the Role of “Salmi Spezzati” at St. Mark’s.’ Journal of the American Musicological Society 34, no. 2 (1981): 249–278.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/jams.1981.34.2.03a00030
Google Scholar
Moore, James H. Vespers at St. Mark’s. Music of Alessandro Grandi, Giovanni Rovetta, and Francesco Cavalli. Ann Arbor Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1981.
Google Scholar
Napiórkowski, Marcin. Mitologia współczesna. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, 2018.
Google Scholar
Napiorkowski, Marcin. Władza wyobraźni. Kto wymyśla, co zdarzyło się wczoraj? Warsaw: Wydawnictwa UW, 2014.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.31338/uw.9788323515203
Google Scholar
Noske, Frits. ‘An Unknown Work by Monteverdi. The Vespers of St. John the Baptist.’ Music & Letters 66, no. 2 (1985): 118–122.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/ml/66.2.118
Google Scholar
Quaranta, Elena. Oltre San Marco. Organizzazione e prassi della musica a Venezia nel Rinascimento. Firenze: Olschki, 1998.
Google Scholar
Rodini, Elizabeth. ‘Describing Narrative in Gentile Bellini’s Procession in Piazza San Marco.’ Art History 21, no. 1 (1998): 26–44.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8365.00091
Google Scholar
Scherzinger, Martin. ‘Toward a History of Digital Music. New Technologies, Business Practices and Intellectual Property Regimes.’ In: The Cambridge Companion to Music in Digital Culture, eds. Nicholas Cook, Monique M. Ingalls and David Trippett, 33–57. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.
Google Scholar
Segal, Robert Alan. Myth. A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Taruskin, Richard. Text and Act. Essays on Music and Performance. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Google Scholar
Torzecki, Mateusz. Okładki płyt. Rzecz o wizualnym uniwersum albumów muzycznych. Poznań: Instytut Kultury Popularnej, 2015.
Google Scholar
Upton, Elizabeth. ‘Concepts of Authenticity in Early Music and Popular Music Communities.’ Ethnomusicology Review 17 (2012), https://ethnomusicologyreview.ucla.edu/journal/volume/17/piece/591
Google Scholar
Whenham, John. Monteverdi: Vespers (1610). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511620119
Google Scholar
Wilson, Nick. The Art of Re-enchantment: Making Early Music in the Modern Age. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199939930.001.0001
Google Scholar
Authors
Bartłomiej GembickiInstitute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8489-6083
Statistics
Abstract views: 403PDF downloads: 276
License
Copyright (c) 2020 Bartłomiej Gembicki
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The author grants the publisher a royalty-free nonexclusive licence (CC BY 4.0) to use the article in Muzyka, retains full copyright, and agrees to identify the work as first having been published in Muzyka should it be published or used again (download licence agreement). By submitting an article the author agrees to make it available under CC BY 4.0 license.
Articles from issues up to and including 3/2022 were published under a Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. During this period the authors granted the publisher a royalty-free nonexclusive license (CC BY-ND 4.0) to use their article in Muzyka, retained full copyright, and agreed to identify the work as first having been published in our journal should it be published or used again.
Most read articles by the same author(s)
- Bartłomiej Gembicki, Monteverdi a San Marco, eds. Marco di Pasquale, Rodolfo Baroncini, Lucca 2020 , Muzyka: Vol. 66 No. 1 (2021)
