vespers service, while others strictly present only the printed music. Monteverdi's Vespers are regarded as a unique milestone of music history, at the transition from Renaissance to Baroque. History and context Monteverdi in Mantua Monteverdi, who was born in Cremona in 1567, was a court musician for the Gonzaga dukes of Mantua from 1590 to 1612. He began as a viol player under Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga and advanced to become maestro della musica in late 1601. He was responsible for the duke's sacred and secular music, in regular church services and soirées on Fridays, and for extraordinary events. While Monteverdi was court musician in Mantua, the opera genre emerged, first as entertainment for nobility, to become public musical theatre later. The first work now considered as an opera is Jacopo Peri's Dafne of 1597. In the new genre, a complete story was told through characters; as well as choruses and ensembles, the vocal parts included recitative, aria, and arioso. Monteverdi's first opera was L'Orfeo which premiered in 1607. The duke was quick to recognise the potential of this new musical form for bringing prestige to those willing to sponsor it. Monteverdi wrote the movements of the Vespers piece by piece, while responsible for the ducal services which were held at the Santa Croce chapel at the palace. He completed the large-scale work in 1610. He possibly composed the Vespers aspiring to a better position, and the work demonstrates his abilities as a composer in a great variety of styles. The setting was Monteverdi's first published sacred composition after his initial publications nearly thirty years before and stands out for its assimilation of both the old and the new styles. Vespers The liturgical vespers is an evening prayer service according to the Catholic Officium Divinum (Divine Office). At Monteverdi's time, it was sung in Latin, as were all Catholic services then. A vespers service at the time contained five psalms, a hymn and the Magnificat (Mary's song of praise). The five psalms for Marian feasts (as well as other female saints) begin with Psalm 110 in Hebrew counting, but known to Monteverdi as Psalmus 109 in the numbering of the Vulgate: The individual psalms and the Magnificat are concluded by the doxology Gloria Patri. The hymn for Marian feasts was "Ave maris stella". Variable elements, changing with the liturgical occasion, are antiphons, inserted before each psalm and the Magnificat, which reflect