Despite what is widely believed, there never has been and probably never will be a universally agreed and used pitch standard for music. As a small example, there are still many Victorian church organs in the UK that play at their original ‘Old Philharmonic’ pitch – about a quarter of a tone higher than today’s theoretical norm of A440. And several famous orchestras play just a bit higher than that as well.
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So what are we going to do about ‘1610’ then?
My previous two blog entries highlighted issues we’d really like to know about but don’t. Prior to that I had sketched the general background and begun to lay out the dilemmas that confront those wishing to perform the music. Let’s take those a bit further forward.
Monteverdi based all the mandatory Vespers music (response, psalms, hymn, Magnificat) on the plainchant melodies traditionally associated with those texts. Continue reading
What we know about performances by Monteverdi and his contemporaries of the 1610 music
Nothing!
What we know about Monteverdi’s reasons for composing and publishing ‘1610’
Nothing!
So what exactly is a Vesper?
Vespers is the early evening service of the Catholic church. It is rarely part of modern parish life, though is still part of the cycle of daily prayer in monasteries and cathedrals. The more prominent Anglican Evensong is a synthesis of Vespers and the later evening service of Compline.
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