Monteverdi’s Vespro della beata Vergine is a landmark work of the early Baroque, sitting at the crossroads of Renaissance polyphony and the novel use of basso continuo heard in his first opera, L’Orfeo. The “1610 Vespers” redefined what sacred music could sound like — emotionally immediate, virtuosic, both looking back to the past and driving forward into the future. Monteverdi specialists I Fagiolini and Robert Hollingworth have waited until their 40th birthday to record the 1610 collection. This is a lifetime’s work with every nuance of drama and color brought out in this thrilling one-to-a-part performance. This historically informed recording interpretation employs a higher organ pitch (known at the time as mezzo tuono), with the brighter early brass sound of the English Cornett & Sackbutt Ensemble, alongside the intimate and deeply personal singing of one of Britain’s most technically polished vocal ensembles.