Prom 22: Monteverdi's Vespers, Royal Albert Hall

Job applications can be a time-consuming and elaborate business, but when Claudio Monteverdi bid to become music director at St Mark’s in Venice he ticked all the boxes with this work.

The Vespers of 1610, setting traditional religious texts devoted to the Virgin Mary, show the father of opera combining the new musical techniques he has developed in his innovative Orfeo, a couple of years earlier, with the traditional sacred settings that rang around the Byzantine interior of the basilica.

Multiple choirs, instrumentation of mathematical complexity and breathtakingly elaborate solo work make any live performance an event, and in this one the French Baroque specialists Pygmalion make their Proms debut under Raphaël Pichon.

Sung without an interval, the music at times resembles the glittering mosaics of St Mark's, and with inventive use of the Albert Hall’s many spaces and galleries, it is not hard to imagine Pygmalion re-creating the magical effects that Monteverdi envisaged for the performances in Venice.

Before the concert, an archive film about the life and music of Monteverdi will be screened at nearby Imperial College Union, from 5.30PM-6.30PM. Admission to this event is free.