Just in from an interesting Monteverdi Vespers at Our Lady and St Philip's Cathedral, Arundel. I must say I do like the building, and it wasn't a bad performance, but it's the first time I've heard a concert there and it's really not the most brilliant acoustic - at least a 5-6 second reverberation time which while great for the more sonorous passages wasn't great for capturing Monteverdi's rhythmic nuances.

Anyway it encouraged me when I got home to look at my recordings, I have quite a few but my favourite remains my oldest one, Jurgen Jurgens / Hamburg Monteverdi Choir/ Concentus Musicus Wein on Das Alte Werk - I bought the vinyl when I was at school in the late 70s - it's a bit of a patchy recording, dating from 1967 and is the earliest 'original instruments' recording that I can bring to mind - the brass playing in particular is a bit variable as I think they were only just figuring out that it was possible to play these parts with trumpets and horns using only lip pressure. But the vocal performances are superb and I love the fact that they haven't just played Monteverdi's music but have put in original plainsong sections in between.



The CD version looks quite different (I have this too):



Don't see it on Spotify though.