Rediscovering Monteverdi, sacred and secular

Abstract

Monteverdi, more than most composers, has enjoyed fame-even notoriety-practically since his dying day. Thanks in part to his public spat with the conservative theorist Artusi, Monteverdi has often been a poster-boy for the forces of musical modernism and progressiveness, even at times when little of his music was known. As a result, the inventively pragmatic and opportunistic reality of his achievement has often been unappreciated. Less reflective undergraduate essays continue to cast him as a self-consciously ‘transitional’ composer, who was aware of himself as a revolutionary methodically working out a new musical language. Three new recordings each present a single published collection complete: the Vespers of 1610, the Sixth book of madrigals (1614) and the Selva morale e spirituale (1641). They reveal afresh the extent of Monteverdi's achievement; the way he drew deeply upon tradition and blended it with the latest cultural developments in order to make his new strides. Some of the music recorded here is little known and deserves a wider audience; other works (such as the Vespers, or Beatus vir from the 1641 collection) are so utterly familiar that they are easily underestimated.