Claudio Monteverdi’s contemporaries called him “l’oracolo della musica”, the oracle of music. With his predominantly vocal works this “first modern composer” single-handedly turned over a new page of musical history. In his scores the balanced polyphony of the Renaissance evolved into a Baroque language rich in tonal colour, drawing on all registers to transpose the richness of human emotions into music. In his “Vespro della Beata Vergine” sumptuous polyphony, concert polychorality and expressive solo passages compete for attention without jeopardising the coherence of the whole. In the rich acoustics of the Maschinenhalle at Zeche Zollern in Dortmund, Philippe Herreweghe leads the Collegium Vocale Gent through the cathedral of sound that is Monteverdi’s religious masterpiece.