CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI Selva Morale e Spirituale Venezia, 1640-41
La Venexiana Claudio Cavina
GCD 920914
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Performing artists
La Venexiana Claudio Cavina, director
Soloists: Rossana Bertini, Alena Dantcheva, Nadia Ragni, Claudio Cavina, Giuseppe Maletto, Sandro Naglia, Matteo Bellotto, Daniele Carnovich
Ripieni: Francesca Cassinari, Paola Reggiani, Emanuele Bianchi, Giovanni Caccamo, Paolo Borgonovo, Marco Radaelli
Instrumentalists: Svetlana Fomina, Carlo Lazzaroni, Ermes Giussani, Mauro Morini, Corrado Colliard, David Yacus, Giorgio Sanvito, Gabriele Palomba, Fulvio Garlaschi, Vittorio Zanon
Production details
Recorded live in Cuenca (Iglesia de San Miguel), Spain, in March 2005 Engineered and produced by Manuel Mohino Executive producer: Carlos Céster Design: Valentín Iglesias Booklet essay: Stefano Russomanno English Français Deutsch Español
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Commercial release sheet (PDF)
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CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI (1567-1643)
Selva Morale e SpiritualeVenezia, 1640-41
CD I (62:44)Vespro di San Gabriele Arcangelo
CD II (72:47)Vespro di San Giuseppe
CD III (72:53)Missa Solemnis
About this CD
After the completion, a few months back, of their Monteverdi Edition – which gathers together the entirety of the madrigal output by Claudio Monteverdi – La Venexiana now issues three discs recorded live at the 2005 Semana de Música Religiosa Festival in Cuenca: the ensemble’s founder members (such as Rossana Bertini, Giuseppe Maletto, Sandro Naglia and Daniele Carnovich) are to be heard in the company of a select group of instrumentalists and singers, all of them under the direction of Claudio Cavina, for a memorable journey through the pieces contained within the Selva Morale e Spirituale.
Rather than following the order of the printed edition, La Venexiana has preferred here to arrange the sequence of pieces into three substantial liturgical settings, each one equipped with its own self-governing character. The first two discs contain one office of Vespers each, taking advantage of the fact that Monteverdi provided double (and sometimes even triple) versions of the Dixit Dominus, Confitebor, Beatus vir, Laudate pueri, Laudate Dominum, Magnificat and Salve Regina. The programme for the third disc has essentially been created around the Messa a 4 and includes other free-standing mass sections. The effect is of constructing a grand missa solemnis that perhaps might have been heard on November 21, 1631 in Saint Mark’s to celebrate the cessation of the plague epidemic in Venice.
With a recently-presented Gramophone Award for the ensemble’s indispensable recording of L’Orfeo still fresh in the mind, this disc will undoubtedly bring much delight to lovers of the music of the two Claudios: Monteverdi and Cavina…
“I really do not think that there is one composer who can be rightly compared to this genius.”
In completing their masterful Monteverdi Edition, Claudio Cavina and La Venexiana have returned to the beginning – to the Madrigali a cinque voci… Libro primo – of Monteverdi’s exploration of the madrigalian art form, a journey which was to occupy the composer for more than 50 years of his life across his staying in the cities of Cremona, Mantua and Venice. In this First Book, published in 1587 when the composer was barely 20 years old yet demonstrably showing clear evidence of his approaching maturity, La Venexiana’s performances are again faithful to Monteverdi’s passion for the written word – above all to the weight theme of love. In this final release in the Monteverdi Edition Cavina adds a twist in the tail by including on this new CD the madrigals from the posthumous Libro Nono put together by the composer’s Venetian publisher. With the rerelease of La Venexiana’s recording of Il Terzo Libro (complete with a new essay penned by Stefano Russomanno), eight volumes now comprise Glossa’s Monteverdi Edition, all available within the attractively and imaginatively unified design style which has become the hallmark of the label. [read more...]