A partnership between two of Australia’s national treasures, presenting sacred masterpieces old and new. In the second of this year’s collaborations between Australia’s premier vocal consort, The Song Company and Australia’s oldest musical ensemble, the Choir of St Mary’s Cathedral Sydney, we celebrate together the 450th anniversary of maestro Claudio Monteverdi’s birth with two glorious polychoral performances of his 1610 Vespers.
St Mary’s Cathedral Choir performed the Vespers in 2013 to universal acclaim, and audiences have been clamouring to repeat the experience ever since. Following their stand-out interpretation of Arvo Pärt’s St John Passion in the Cathedral earlier this year with The Song Company, the two ensembles continue their joint artistic voyage, this time accompanied by Orchestra of the Antipodes on period instruments in a matinée and an evening performance on Friday 15 September 2017.
Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 is an early Baroque favourite containing some of the most goosebump-tastic moments in choral music from the last four centuries: psalms, motets, responses, a hymn, and the Magnificat – the Blessed Virgin Mary’s hymn of praise – to be sung and played by the finest vocal soloists, choir, and specialist instrumental players. The music’s intricate layering is designed to fill sacred spaces such as St Mark’s, Venice, where Monteverdi became maestro di cappella in 1613, and St Mary’s Cathedral is an ideal location for performing and hearing these sublime sounds. The Vespers were published in the same volume as the Missa In illo tempore which The Song Company recorded last year in the Crypt of St Mary’s Cathedral. You will be moved by a performance of the Vespers whose authenticity is outdone only by its expressiveness and pure musical joy.
Duration: 100' (no interval).
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Original photograph by Adam.J.W.C.