Monteverdi’s Vespers from 1610 is one of the few works of its time that belongs to the informal canon of pieces that almost every choir dreams of performing at least once. The work is polyphonic, challenging, and requires not only a high number of soloists, but also a relatively large orchestra, including some instruments that are still rather rare and therefore expensive. However Monteverdi’s Vespers can also be performed with considerably less outlay.
For his first Singspiel in 1768 the twelve-year-old Mozart chose a subject that was both popular and provocative. Bastien und Bastienne is based on Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s one-act pastoral Le devin du village, which he used as a vehicle for his philosophical ideas when he composed it in 1752, at the height of the Querelle des Bouffons controversy about French and Italian operatic styles. Mozart’s nuanced musical portrayal of the three protagonists already hints at the skills he would go on to develop as a psychologically aware opera composer.
