The Lammermuir Festival is now firmly enough embedded into Scotland’s musical calendar that the year feels unthinkable without it, but they’re still attracting artists to make their debuts there, and in the festival’s first weekend the most striking of these was I Fagiolini. Under their director, Robert Hollingworth, they did an evening of Purcell on Saturday, which was substantial in itself, but which also served as the curtain-raiser to Sunday evening’s concert of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610.
Hollingworth has thought deeply about his Monteverdi project (one which they’re repeating in London later this month) and spoke engagingly to the audience about some of his decisions, explaining what some might see as unusual choices of pitch or tempo. The only moment that made my antennae flicker was in the opening Responsorium, which seemed to switch slightly awkwardly between speeds. Everything else sounded carefully considered and thoughtfully proportioned.
More important than any of this, however, was the sheer, carolling joy of the music they produced. The players of the English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble were clearly having a whale of a time as their brass and wind notes echoed around the medieval vaulting of St Mary’s Church, and this rubbed off on the period strings of I Fagiolini who played with joyous energy in the Sonata sopra Sancta Maria, as well as on the thrumming bustle of the harp and chitarrone.
The singing was where the real gold was to be found, however. The chorus, singing one-to-a-part, sounded sensational, with gorgeous blend in whatever combination Hollingworth chose for them. In the Laetatus sum, for example, there was a palpable sense of the different strands of music following (or perhaps goading) one another, while in the Nisi Dominus there was a glorious feeling of the lines spilling over one another in bounteous, spiritual joy. The soloists, who also formed the choruses, were top notch, too. Tenor Nicholas Mulroy was hugely expressive in the Nigra sum, and even more so when joined by two additional tenors for Duo Seraphim. The pair of sopranos in the Pulchra es sang with intoxicating beauty, and the Audi coelum balanced one declamatory tenor voice on stage against a soft, alluring echo off it.
Strangely, however, the air seemed to go out of the tyres after the interval. Having an interval at all is a problematic decision for the Monteverdi Vespers, and calls into question how far it is to be considered one piece as opposed to a collection. Putting one after the Audi coelum seemed to sap much of the dramatic energy, and something felt oddly missing in the second half of the concert, not helped by the fact that the final Magnificat saw an unhelpfully frequent movement of singers on and off stage, often leaving an unnecessary gap in between sections. Wouldn’t it have been much less disruptive to have had them all on stage throughout it?