Gramophone Awards
2018
Shortlisted - Choral

I Fagiolini, Robert Hollingworth

Celebrating Monteverdi’s 450th anniversary - a key new release in this Monteverdi year.

Forming a response to Monteverdi’s timeless masterpiece Vespro della Beata Vergine (1610), these Other Vespers are centred around works from the end of his life, in 1640 following 23 years as maestro at St. Mark’s Venice. Including the celebrated Beatus vir.

A truly Venetian Vespers, arranged in a setting that could have been performed in Venice in Monteverdi’s time, with his sacred choral works alongside music of his contemporaries.

Culminating in Giovanni Gabrieli's powerful and moving Magnificat in 14 parts: for three separate 'choirs'.

To coincide with I Fagiolini's 30th anniversary: the ensemble has always enjoyed a close association with Monteverdi.

Robert Hollingworth is a Monteverdi specialist; this is an authentic take on the repertoire, including the incredible soundworld of the cornetto muto alongside four male voices of I Fagiolini, in the Palestrina/Bovicelli Ave verum corpus - the first recording of such a reconstruction.

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"The word that always springs to mind when I listen to this kind of Venetian music, be it Gabrieli or Monteverdi or any of their contemporaries, is ‘magnificent’, and this album amply demonstrates why. Hollingworth and his musicians perfectly capture, as they have so many times before, the simultaneously solemn yet joyful spirit of the music, and once again I find myself transported by their performances to the glorious acoustic and surroundings of San Marco." - Presto Classical 28th April 2017