with the psalms. In Monteverdi's time, it was common to improvise and make adjustments during performances, depending on the acoustics and the availability and capability of performers. The print of his Vespers shows unusual detail in reducing this freedom, for example, by precise notation of embellishments and even organ registration. Recordings The first recording of the Vespers was arguably an American performance in 1952, featuring musicians from the University of Illinois conducted by Leopold Stokowski. The recording was released in LP format, probably in 1953, but appears not to have been commercially distributed. The work has since been recorded many times in several versions, involving both modern and period instruments. Some recordings allocate the voice parts to choirs, while others use the "one voice per part" concept. In 1964, John Eliot Gardiner assembled a group of musicians to perform the work in King's College Chapel, Cambridge. The event became the birth of the later Monteverdi Choir. Gardiner recorded the Vespers twice, in 1974 and in 1989. Although some musicologists argue that Monteverdi was offering a compendium of music for vespers services from which a selection could be made, most recordings present the composition as a unified work, deciding which of the two versions of scoring to perform. Recordings differ in presenting strictly what Monteverdi composed, or in liturgical context, with added antiphons for a specific feast day. In his 2005 version, Paul McCreesh also included music from other publications and changed the order of several movements. Modern reception Kurtzman, who edited a publication of the work for Oxford University Press, notes: "...it seems as if Monteverdi were intent in displaying his skills in virtually all contemporary styles of composition, using every modern structural technique". Monteverdi achieved overall unity by using the Gregorian plainchant as a cantus firmus, for the beginning, the psalms, the litany and the Magnificat. This "rigorous adhesion to the psalm tones" is similar to the style of Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi, who was choirmaster at the Basilica palatina di Santa Barbara at the ducal palace in Mantua. Whenham summarised about the use of chant: Musicologists have debated topics such as the role of the sacri concentus and sonata, instrumentation, keys (chiavette), and issues of historically informed performance. The musicologist Tim Carter summarised in his entry for the composer for Grove in 2007: "His three major collections of liturgical and devotional music transcend the merely functional, exploiting a rich