Claudio Monteverdi: Puer Natus (Chiome d’oro); Voices of Music

Monteverdi’s musical whirligig, with a Latin contrafactum by Lawrence Rosenwald. Live, HD video from the Venetian Christmas Vespers concert, December, 2013, performed on original instruments by the San Francisco based Early Music ensemble Voices of Music. NB: This video uses YouTube’s Closed Caption system that has many benefits for people around the world to enjoy this music. You can turn the text (translation) on and off using the “CC“ button, and you can also use YouTube’s built in translation feature for other languages. In the renaissance and baroque, it was common practice to take a really great piece of music and give it new lyrics for a special occasion: the new text was called a “contrafactum.“ For this concert, we decided to take one of Monteverdi’s best duets, Chiome d’oro--which had already been given a new text for Easter in the 17th century--and make a new Latin text for our Christmas Vespers. Puer natus, sum laetatus, in hac die gaudiosa,