This is the only extensive study of the Monteverdi Vespers, vastly expanding on the author's 1978 set of essays on the subject, long since out-of-print. The volume studies the Vespers from the perspectives of its musical and liturgical origins and context, presents analytical essays on the music, and examines seventeenth-century performance practice as it pertains to the Vespers. Appendices include bibliographies and an analytical discography.