I have adored, more to the point thirsted for, his music since I first heard it, as
an A-level student, the 1610 Vespers one of my set works. (Yes, I have since
learned, indeed I learned then, that 'work' was definitely to be placed in
inverted commas, especially in this case.) We
listened to John Eliot Gardiner from St Mark’s, but I found the performance,
indeed the whole approach, rather stiff. I managed to borrow a copy of Gardiner’s
earlier recording, and liked that rather more; I still do, unfashionably.
However, I still know of no single performance or recording that conveys more than a little of what I imagine of the intimacy, the grandeur,
the eroticism, the piety, the richness of verbal and musical meaning: of those and so many other
qualities. Perhaps that is as it should be: the ‘work’ is ‘impossible’ to
perform in the best sense(s).
Getting to know some other of Monteverdi’s works
during those A-level years, I encountered Zefiro
torna, which made a lasting impression – although not nearly so much as
when I discovered Nadia Boulanger’s legendary recording of this and other
madrigals.
Other sacred music seemed almost to cast a magic
spell upon me. It remains the sacred œuvre that says most to me before Bach’s –
and yet is so utterly different from his in almost every way. Sample, immerse, never ignore.
I came to the operas later: Poppea, then Ulisse, then
Orfeo. I actually knew Alexander
Goehr’s Arianna before any of them, being
lucky enough to attend a performance in Cambridge. (I even played a tiny, tiny
role, or deluded myself that I did, in the performance and, I think, the
recording. A friend was working in the studio on the manipulation of the
Kathleen Ferrier Lament to be incorporated at the heart of Goehr’s inventive
new drama, and I had to listen, as a second pair of ears, for the pitch to be
correct.) It was after that that I plucked up the courage to write to him, concerning
his father, Walter’s early performances, and he kindly sent me cassettes,
including Walter’s Philharmonia Poppea.
The knowledge that there was someone else in Cambridge who loved both
Monteverdi and Schoenberg emboldened me to listen to more of both and to listen to, indeed to read, more Goehr too.
It is now perhaps those operas, and perhaps above
all Ulisse of which I think most often
when I think of Monteverdi. Ulisse’s
Shakespearean range and depth have rarely, if ever, been surpassed. If they
have, then it is surely only by Mozart and Wagner. But I am sure my feelings,
my provisional judgements, will change; I hope they will. Monteverdi is, after
all, for life, not just for A-level.
