Vespro della beata vergine

Description

If his operas secured Francesco Cavalli an important place among the composers of the 17th century, his religious work is practically unknown. Certainly, he undoubtedly dedicated most of his energy and time to his thirty-two Venetian operas; however, he devoted himself to sacred music during his sixty years of activity at San Marco. At the time Cavalli published the Musiche sacre, his creative inspiration was at its peak and his career was at its zenith. Like the two collections of Monteverdi (the one from 1610 and the Selva morale from 1640), Cavalli's Musiche sacre contains elements that well reflect the liturgical requirements of a wide range of feasts. This recording includes the essence of the second vespers of a feast of the Virgin (in this case, it is the Assumption) as they might have been heard at Saint Mark's or in some other Venetian church. The musical material is neither more nor less "unified" than in Monteverdi's Vespro della Beata Vergine (1610). It could not have been more so, as the formal requirements of the liturgy far exceeded those of the music. An expert ensemble of solo voices joins the instrumentalists of the Concerto Palatino in this magnificent recording made in the mid-1990s that Glossa is proud to reissue as part of its series dedicated to the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis.