The final day of Monteverdi Festival 2024 confirms the very high quality of the event, which attracted hundreds of visitors to the city, from Italy and abroad. In the concert on Sunday 23rd in the Basilica of San Michele Vetere, the maestro Antonio Grecoat the head of the choir and orchestra Monteverdi Festival-Cremona Antiqua, paid homage to the composers of the Cappella Marciana, the birthplace of the polychoral style. Characterized by the spatial separation of choirs according to the architectural layout of St. Mark’s Basilica, this technique not only defines the Venetian musical landscape during the Baroque period, but also has a profound impact on the subsequent development of both religious and secular composition.
The rich program of the evening opened with the symphony from the Seventh Book of Madrigals, the Litany of the Blessed Virgin and the Symphony of the third act taken from L’Orfeo by Claudio Monteverdi; it continued with the Missa pro defactis by Francesco Cavalli and with the Canzon XII a 8 by Giovanni Gabrieli, both organists at San Marco; to close with Giovanni Legrenzi’s Dies Irae (from Prosa pro mortuis). Cavalli’s musical interpretation of the Mass was particularly refined, commemorating his funeral with it. The soloists are very good Cristina Fanelli And Giorgia Sorichetti (sopranos), Alessandro Simonato (countertenor), Nicola Di Filippo, Angelo Testori And Mattia Dattolo (tenors) e Giacomo Pieracci And Lorenzo Tosi (bass). Crowded church and very warm applause at the end.
