Special performance of Monteverdi's 'Vespers' kicks off choir school's 20th anniversary

Friday, Mar. 04, 2016

SALT LAKE CITY — One concert featuring Baroque-era instruments and another that re-enacts the story of Noah are on the schedule as the Madeleine Choir School celebrates its 20th year.

On March 6, the choristers will perform Claudio Monteverdi’s “Vespers of the Blessed Virgin 1610,” which “is a remarkable work. It’s considered one of the great monuments of music and … one of the great pillars of sacred music from the Baroque period,” said Gregory Glenn, the school’s pastoral administrator.

The concert will feature an array of early musical instruments, including cornetts, a wind instrument similar to a recorder; sackbuts, a type of trombone; and theorbos, a type of lute.

“You can’t just walk down the street and run into a cornett or a sackbut here in Utah, so we’re having to bring them from all over the country,” Glenn said; musicians specializing in these instruments are coming from Stanford University, Indiana University and Harvard University.

 “We’re putting together this group to perform this piece; it’s a wonderfully unique and fantastic event for the cathedral,” said Glenn, who helped found the choir school two decades ago.

“We started relatively humbly, with wonderfully enthusiastic and dedicated choristers and musicians, but the whole development of musical skills and musical quality is a longtime process, and gradually, over the 20 years, the choristers have become more refined, more prepared musically to do more difficult things,” Glenn said, explaining why a piece such as Monteverdi’s is possible for today’s choir school students. 

With “Vespers,” Monteverdi meant to make a statement, Glenn said. “He set out to demonstrate that he was very adept and knowledgeable about the traditional chant that was used to sing the psalmody and other ordinary elements of a vespers service. He was fully aware of how that worked, but Monteverdi was bursting with compositional innovation. He wanted to do something new and to move music forward in a fantastic way, … so what you will hear are the early psalm tones that have always been used for the singing of vespers or any Liturgy of the Hours, but then you will hear it incredibly kind of ramped up musically by Monteverdi.”

The work derives its structure from the traditional evening prayer of the cathedrals and monastic communities, beginning with the introductory verse, “O God, come to my assistance,” continuing with the five evening psalms, and concluding with the great canticle known as the Magnificat, according to the press release for the concert; sacred Concerti serve as musical interludes between the psalms and the ordinary elements of the Vespers service.

Also in honor of the choir school’s 20th anniversary, a performance of Benjamin Britten’s “Noyes Fludde” is scheduled for the weekend of April 29 as part of the Madeleine Festival.

“It’s pretty exciting – much bigger than what we’d usually do” for the festival, Glenn said. 

Britten wrote the piece with the intent that it be performed by a combination of professional and amateur musicians, particularly children, Glenn said, and it “is meant for performance within a church, not a concert hall; it makes use of some of the traditional hymns that people know.”

The performance will be staged with costumes and lighting, Glenn said; many of the children will wear masks to portray the various animals that are loaded onto Noah’s ark.

“Britten has done a fantastic job of creating almost like a church opera that’s based on the story” of the Biblical flood, Glenn said.

WHAT: Monteverdi’s “Vespers of the Blessed Virgin 1610” 

WHEN: Sunday, March 6, 8 p.m.

WHERE: Cathedral of the Madeleine, 309 E. South Temple, SLC

Free and open to the public.

The Madeleine Choir School choristers and the Cathedral Choir, joined by musicians from Stanford University, Indiana University, Harvard University and the Utah Symphony, will perform under the direction of Dr. Craig Jessop. 

For information or reserved seating passes, call 801-994-4663 or visit www.utmcs.org.