Monteverdi Vespers Soar Joyfully in St. James Cathedral
We are fortunate to have in Seattle wonderful, knowledgeable musicians who give us superb performances of every kind of classical music: music from the start of the last millennium to the present day. The latest in this fall’s parade of stellar concerts occurred Saturday night at St. James Cathedral when Pacific MusicWorks performed Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers.
Artistic director, conductor, and lutenist Stephen Stubbs gathered together eight singers steeped in the type of singing with which Monteverdi would be familiar, and a small orchestra equally familiar with the genre, plus the University of Washington Chamber Singers for the chorus. Stubbs is well known worldwide for his expertise. People value performing with him, and among the several performers from abroad with international reputations who joined in were cornetto player Bruce Dickey and tenor Charles Daniels.
The Vespers is a joyful work, with some of its most exquisite and moving moments in praise of the Virgin Mary but perhaps to other female saints as well. At the time it was written it was the most ambitious, even monumental sacred work to date and probably performed first at St. Mark’s Cathedral in Venice. It felt entirely appropriate that Saturday’s performance take place in a cathedral ambience and a resonant space.
It’s 90 minutes long, but there is so much variety that the listener is absorbed: chorus with orchestra including two cornettos (trumpet precursor) and three sackbuts (trombone precursors), both instruments which would have been used at St. Mark’s; solos, duets, trios with harp, organ and great bass lute, choral sections with choirs divided or together. There was much moving around of performers to create the particular configuration of that musical section, but it was done unobtrusively and was not disruptive.
And the singing! To hear Daniels with his astonishingly wide range and expressiveness in the loving description of “Nigra sum” from the Canticles, the pure soaring duet with sopranos Jolle Greenleaf and Catherine Webster in “Pulchra Es,” also from the Canticles; the gorgeous “Duo Seraphim” with Daniels and tenor Zachary Wilder, plus tenor Thomas Thompson joining in near the end; the moving prayer “Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis” with both sopranos and alto Laura Pudwell singing in unison.
These were just some of the solos, each more breathtaking than the last, while the uplifting choral sections soared up to the roof, most of them coming from the Psalms and in which the soloists joined.
In the acoustics of St. James, vibrato on either instruments or in voices tends to muddy the harmonies, but there was no problem with this Saturday. The sound was rich, full, pure and gloriously transparent.
We can hear more of Stubbs’s vision of early music performance with his direction of Handel’s Messiah in December. It won’t be at St. James, but the level of singing and playing will be just as high.
