I got more out of this concert than Janie did, for reasons the following text and vids partially explain.
I have recently written about the dawning of my interest in early music, dating it in 1987 when I “found” the Hilliard Ensemble, Josquin, Byrd and others on the radio – click here or below:
But actually I was brought up with some early Baroque madrigals ringing in my ears – a reel-to-reel recording, made by my father, from the radio, of Monteverdi’s Madrigals of Love and War.
The extraordinary BBC genome Project allows me to find the concert in question so easily it is almost embarrassingly easy – it was broadcast on 4 June 1974 at 21:50 – click here. I wouldn’t have heard the recording on that day – clearly, but dad probably played it to me pretty soon afterwards and I remember listening to it a lot that summer. The concert had originally taken place in October 1973 – a few weeks after I started secondary school.
But I digress…
…except to say that I had never heard any Madrigals of Love and War live and was keen to hear some – hence my particular desire to book this concert.
Thursday evening is not (and in those days certainly was not) Janie’s favourite night to go to a concert. Nor is Monteverdi one of her favourites.
This concert conformed Janie’s view that Monteverdi is not really for her. All too noisy and the male singing is a bit shouty, she claims. I sort-of know what she means, without agreeing with the conclusion.
Janie did enjoy some of the instrumental music, though…
…here is a vid of some other folk playing the opening number we heard that evening – Falconieri’s lovely Ciaconna in G major:
…and Janie did enjoy seeing some of her favourite early music folk, such as Reiko Ichise on the viola da gamba and Janie’s pal, William Carter, on the theorbo.
Here is a vid with a good extract of John Elliot Gardiner and his Monteverdi mob being (in Janie’s terms) noisy and shouty:
…and here is a vid of the Academy of Ancient Music rehearsing L’Orfeo…
…and here is a YouTube in a rock video stylee of the soprano, Anna Prohaska, singing some Monteverdi on her own album…
…don’t ask me to explain the imagery in the above vid – I couldn’t even begin.