Selva Morale e Spirituale : Cavina / La Venexiana (3CD)

The present album is a reissue of a legendary recording by a legendary ensemble, La Venexiana. Recorded at the 2005 Semana de Musica Religiosa Festival in Cuenca, Spain, the ensembles founding members (Rossana Bertini, Giuseppe Maletto, Sandro Naglia and Daniele Carnovich) are to be heard in the company of a select group of instrumentalists and singers, all of them under the direction of Claudio Cavina, for a memorable journey through the pieces contained in Claudio Monteverdis Selva morale e spirituale. Rather than following the order of the printed edition, La Venexiana has preferred here to arrange the sequence of pieces into three substantial liturgical settings, each one equipped with its own self-governing character. The first two albums contain one office of Vespers each, taking advantage of the fact that Monteverdi provided double (and sometimes even triple) versions of the Dixit Dominus, Confitebor, Beatus vir, Laudate pueri, Laudate Dominum, Magnificat and Salve Regina. The programme for the third album has essentially been created around the Messa a 4 and includes other free-standing mass sections. The effect is of constructing a grand Missa solemnis that perhaps might have been heard on November 21, 1631 in Saint Marks to celebrate the cessation of the plague epidemic in Venice.