Vespro della Beata Vergine
Vespro della Beata Vergine, SV 206, is a musical setting by Claudio Monteverdi of the evening vespers on Marian feasts, scored for soloists, choirs, and orchestra. It is an ambitious work in scope and in its variety of style and scoring, and has a duration of around 90 minutes. Published in Venice as Sanctissimae Virgini Missa senis vocibus ac Vesperae pluribus decantandae, cum nonnullis sacris concentibus, ad Sacella sive Principum Cubicula accommodata, it is sometimes called Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610.
Title page of the "Bassus Generalis" for one of the partbooks in which the Vespers were published in 1610
The basilica of St. Barbara, the ducal palace church at Mantua
From the Magnificat, a page from the alto partbook (short score), the voice part left and continuo part right
Cornetto player
Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi was an Italian composer, choirmaster and string player. A composer of both secular and sacred music, and a pioneer in the development of opera, he is considered a crucial transitional figure between the Renaissance and Baroque periods of music history.
Cremona Cathedral, where Monteverdi's teacher Ingegneri was maestro di capella
Duke Vincenzo I Gonzaga in his coronation robes (1587, by Jeannin Bahuet [it])
The only certain portrait of Claudio Monteverdi, from the title page of Fiori poetici, a 1644 book of commemorative poems for his funeral
Duke Francesco IV Gonzaga, by the studio of Frans Pourbus the Younger