Oxford Pro Musica Singers - Monteverdi Vespers (1610)

image of the Oxford Pro Musica Choir performing at the Sheldonian Theatre

As autumn threatens to cede to winter this October, Oxford Pro Musica Singers proposes to brighten things up by transporting you to Venice on the cusp of the Baroque period in a performance of Claudio Monteverdi’s glorious Vespers of 1610.

Nominally in honour of the Blessed Virgin, the work is an ambitious collection of vesper psalms, a Marian hymn and litany, and the Magnificat, Mary’s great song of praise. Monteverdi fuses traditional usage of plainchant psalms with the emerging operatic style to conjure up dazzling variety: the movements range from to virtuoso solos to complex madrigalian textures, from lively duets to rich polychoral settings, from restrained recitative and cantus firmus to exuberant instrumental interludes, to create a vivacious and uplifting musical assault on the senses.

Once more making apt use of the ornate spaces of the Sheldonian Theatre in the wake of our successful programme of Vivaldi’s Gloria and Handel’s Dixit Dominus in July 2023, we are delighted to collaborate again with Oxford’s specialist early music ensemble, Instruments of Time and Truth, as well as a vibrant team of soloists.

We do hope that you will join us in restoring some colour to an English October evening with the glorious glitter of Venice.

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