Monteverdi: Selva morale e spirituale

After the completion, a few months back, of their complete Monteverdi Madrigal Edition, and a Gramophone Award for Orfeo, La Venexiana now issues three discs recorded live at the 2005 Semana de Música Religiosa Festival in Cuenca.The ensemble's founder members, Rossana Bertini, Giuseppe Maletto, Sandro Naglia and Daniele Carnovich, are 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 Monteverdi's Selva Morale e Spirituale. Rather than following the order of the printed edition, La Venexiana have arranged the sequence of pieces into three substantial liturgical settings, each one equipped with its own 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 end of the plague epidemic in Venice.

Selva morale e spirituale is regarded as Monteverdi's "most significant anthology of liturgical works since the Vespers of 1610”, and is considered the composers testament of church music, compiled when he was already 74 years old. The collection contains various forms of sacred music, from madrigals in Italian to a complete Mass, the instrumentation varying between a single voice to eight voices with orchestra.

Recorded 1967-1969

Winner: Grand Prix Arthur Honegger 1968 de l’Académie du disque français.

Winner: Grand Prix du Disque de l’Académie Charles Cros.

Winner: Prix mondial du disque, Montreux (Chillon d’argent).