October 10, 2010 – THE PLAIN DEALER
Apollo’s Fire once again illuminates Monteverdi’s “Vespers of 1610″
by Donald Rosenberg
Apollo’s Fire music director Jeannette Sorrell rehearses the Cleveland Baroque Orchestra and Apollo’s Singers for this weekend’s performances of Monteverdi’s “Vespers of 1610.”
Musicians have to fill in so many blanks when approaching Claudio Monteverdi’s “Vespers of the Blessed Virgin” that it’s inevitable the results will vary according to interpretive discretion.
For her version of “Vespers of 1610,” titled to indicate publication date, Apollo’s Fire music director Jeannette Sorrell devised a score in 1998 that uses small vocal and instrumental forces to convey the halo of creativity Monteverdi achieved in his masterpiece.
The same version, with a few minor changes, is at the heart of the 400th-anniversary edition of the “Vespers,” which Sorrell, her Cleveland Baroque Orchestra, Apollo’s Singers and a vibrant array of guest vocalists are offering to open the ensemble’s 19th season.
The performance Saturday at First Baptist Church of Greater Cleveland in Shaker Heights was one of those occasions when Monteverdi’s musical inspiration gripped ears, heart and soul.
Sorrell conducted the “Vespers” here in 1998 and 2001 before putting the score away until the current run. In the years since she last shaped the piece, her command of Monteverdi’s idiom has become both more subtle and more dramatic.
There were moments Saturday when Sorrell and her musicians seemed almost to disappear into the music, leaving Monteverdi to console, stir and elevate with the psalms, motets, hymn and Magnificat that make up the “Vespers.”
To these sections, Sorrell added a procession – celebratory drum leading the vocal soloists and conductor down the center aisle – and antiphons (chants sung a cappella by male singers) to connect the texts.
The beauty and majesty that lie on every page of the score were treated with utmost care, detail and space by the Apollo’s Fire forces in the church’s sometimes foggy acoustics.
Members of Apollo’s Singers, the ensemble’s chorus, were on constant alert to gauge dynamics to heighten the music’s expressive qualities. The decay of sound on “Amen” at the end of Psalm 126 was a spellbinding example of the color that Sorrell and company often brushed onto Monteverdi’s palette.
But the performance was not about destinations on a journey. As set forth by these musicians, the experience was about the journey itself – an expansive voyage in which instruments fleshed out the rich thematic and harmonic language as the singers conveyed liturgical meaning.
Along the way, the music-making ranged from intimate (featuring those disarming long-necked lutes known as theorbos) to regal, with Monteverdi’s juxtaposition of sacred and amorous texts providing ample contrast.
The vocal soloists brought stylish urgency to their duties, especially the fervent tenors (Zachary Wilder and Richard Edgar-Wilson, echoing one another in several sections) and gleaming sopranos (Terri Richter and Nell Snaidas).
The period-instrument players of Apollo’s Fire were at their most purposefully virtuosic, drawing attention to Monteverdi either when producing mellow cushions of sound or extravagant flourishes.
In 1998 and 2001, “Vespers of 1610” was one of the high points in our musical year. The same is likely to hold true for 2010.