For what it's worth: as far as the Vespers go I'm still loyal to Parrott for some reason even though no one else seems to like it much and it's not difficult to pick it to bits on any number of grounds. It's certainly relatively cool as readings go although I don't find any heat really necessary here beyond what Monteverdi put there. For me Kirkby is at her very finest and Rogers is also still very fine although traces of manneredness were appearing even then. Otherwise not many of the voices are all that distinguished but there are enough of them who can get round the coloratura really convincingly and for me there's a sense of ensemble which I haven't yet found anywhere else. I've flirted with many other recordings of course (notably Gardiner on DG, McCreesh, Alessandrini) but that's the one I come back to.

I don't know about it being for "grand public performance" (whatever that might actually have meant at the beginning of the 17th century) - it wasn't, after all, written for San Marco but for much smaller court chapels such as that at Mantua (nor was it necessarily written to be performed as a unit, although it certainly works as a large-scale form).