Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/Vespro della Beata Vergine/archive1

TFA blurb review[edit]

Vespro della Beata Vergine (Vespers for the Blessed Virgin) is a musical setting by Claudio Monteverdi of the evening vespers on Marian feasts, scored for soloists, choirs, and orchestra. An ambitious work in scope and in its variety of style and scoring, it was published in Venice with a dedication to Pope Paul V dated 1 September 1610. The libretto is compiled from several Latin Biblical and liturgical texts. Monteverdi built some movements on the traditional Gregorian plainchant as a cantus firmus. The composition is scored for up to ten vocal parts and instruments including cornettos, violins, viole da braccio, and basso continuo. No performance during the composer's lifetime can be positively identified from surviving documents, though parts of the work might have been performed at the ducal chapels in Mantua and at St Mark's in Venice, where the composer became director of music in 1613. It represents a milestone of music history, at the transition from Renaissance to Baroque. (Full article...)

Just a suggested blurb ... thoughts and edits are welcome. - Dank (push to talk) 18:29, 20 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for a tough job. The cornettos are crucial, the viole da braccio much less so, + a stubby article. I'd love "psalms", and think cantus firmus is a must, being what distinguishes this work - if it even is one - from others, as a link to the past, while there are the very "modern" solo movements. - I like "milestone" - thinking it was Brian's wording. If only we knew what he woud have said. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:37, 20 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Gerda, this is John, are the changes I just made suitable? Johnboddie (talk) 21:19, 20 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, John, nice to meet you! I'll look after sleep, past midnight. Perhaps better put your version next to the other, for easier comparison. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:10, 20 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think I'll just start from scratch, aiming at avoiding repetition (vespers, Mary) and avoiding trivia (violin, basso continuo, - same for almost every piece of Baroque music), going for the unusual, - I'm still a DYK person ;)

Vespro della Beata Vergine is an extended composition for the evening vespers on Marian feasts by Claudio Monteverdi, printed in 1610. He set the usual Latin psalms and Magnificat, but also solo concertos in the style of the emerging opera. The ambitious composition, which uses the traditional Gregorian plainchant as cantus firmus, is scored for soloists, choirs of up to ten parts, and orchestra. Monteverdi wrote it when he was court musician in Mantua, and had it printed in Venice. He dedicated it to Pope Paul V dated 1 September 1610, and travelled to Rome to deliver it. He became director of music at St Mark's Basilica in Venice in 1613. His vespers represent a milestone of music history at the transition from Renaissance to Baroque. (Full article...)