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Scholars have yet to determine exactly why Claudio Monteverdi wrote these magnificent Vespers, but one theory is that he used them as a kind of application to become music director of Saint Mark's in Venice. Going on this assumption, John Eliot Gardiner brought his own Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists to that hallowed cathedral for a miraculous live recording. The unique acoustics of Saint Mark's provide a shimmering, golden aura to the music-making and help to realize the crucial spatial effects Monteverdi wrote into the score. The Vespers was a work of great daring that brought new expressive elements from secular forms like the madrigal and opera to sacred composition. Never before had religious imagery been conveyed through music with such force. Take "Duo Seraphim" (the seventh movement) for example, where the echoing of the voices evokes the ethereal with sublime simplicity. This glorious music has never sounded more angelic. Andrew Farach-Colton, Barnes & Noble