Last night I performed the Monteverdi Vespers, or 'Vespro della Beata Vergine' to use the full title. I briefly covered the Vespers earlier when researching polyphonic choral music, but there were some interesting aspects of it that I didn't cover.
We performed it with a period orchestra, which I found absolutely fascinating; there were strings, 3 cornetts, 3 suckbuts, a theorbo and an organ. On top of this, the orchestra was tuned a semitone higher than usual, so everything sounded a lot sharper than usual.
The cornetts produced a wonderful sound like a reedy trumpet, which isn't surprising given it's basically like an oboe with a trumpet mouthpiece. This made me wonder how you become a cornett player; do you start off as a woodwind player or a brass player? The sackbuts were basically baby trombones but they came in three different sizes, alto, tenor and bass. The theorbo was an amazing instrument, like a very large lute, which we used with the organ to provide the continuo part.
It was said by one of the performers that the church that Monteverdi had in mind when he wrote the piece had no real acoustic, so he had to write the echo in the music himself. Whilst this may be folklore, you can understand why people might come to this conclusion. There are numerous moments when Montiverdi writes an echo in the music, with tenor and soprano soloists, the cornetts and even in the choral writing. This can be made more effective by, as was done last night, positioning the performers in different parts of the church to create a visual effect as well as aural; this works well in a venue with a good acoustic as the echo is different for the performers located in different places.
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