The Listener, 13 February 1969

With Monteverdi as the week's composer, two first performances of English music in the Royal Philharmonic Society's concert, and a lunchtime recital by one of the greatest pianists of today, the BBC offered us a week of unusual scope and interest. The revival of Monteverdi in recent times has revealed a great composer to many to whom he was only a name before. Incomprehensibly neglected for so long, it is only in the last thirty years or so that he has become known to the general musical public. One of the pioneers of this revival was Nadia Boulanger, whose recordings of some of the madrigals were made long before the days of the frequent performances we can now enjoy. In ‘This Week's Composer’ we were given a wide choice of his music. It included the Mass in four parts sung by the choir of St John's College, Cambridge, under George Guest, Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, motets, madrigals, and a performance of striking intensity of the Magnificat from the Vespers of 1651 by the choir of the Carmelite Priory, London, conducted by George Malcolm. A great deal of Monteverdi's music was written for performance in church. One would be unlikely to hear it there today. It is sad that the gulf between such splendid music and the object for which it was written grows wider – as far as the Catholic Church is concerned – as time goes on.