Monteverdi's Vespro della Beata Vergine,published together with his Missa in illo tempore,has been a familiar item in music histories and the subject of intense interest among early music performers and enthusiasts for many years. And well it should be,given the grand dimensions,vocal and instrumental virtuosity,musical colour,and extraordinary variety characterizing the collection of fourteen compositions subsumed under the title Vespro della Beata Vergine in the composer's Bassus Generalis part-book.The importance of this publication to Monteverdi himself is underscored by its dedication to Pope Paul V.Interest in the Vespers has led to several modern editions and innumerable performances and recordings, some of very high quality,employing historical instruments and up-to-date knowledge of early seventeenth-century performance practices.By now,the Vespers of 1610 are truly in the public domain,familiar to large numbers of musicians and music-lovers. However there are some ups and downs you should be aware of before you make the decision. First of all, the biggest reason that I'm still in college after six years is the delays caused by this internship. It's a great deal financially and the school is amazing and your responsibilities are very small and you'll have a ridiculous amount of time to explore Tokyo and do whatever you want. You can also join any clubs you want to at the school for the three months you're there, but some of them are harder to get into than others. The downside is, this internship is not very well organized. This may have changed now, but they guy who went right before us was a good friend of mine, and he was delayed almost two months in going because of problems in sending the visa. Me and Nick, (I went with a good friend of mine, which is really IDEAL for this) seeing these problems tried hard to avoid this delay. However, the director is terrible at responding to emails, and we ended up being delayed an ENTIRE SEMESTER of school (which was sorta cool because we really just dicked around and played video games, but our parents were ultra pissed). The amazing incompetence of the people sending your visas and giving you all the information (which they likely won't half the time) is the biggest deterrent in this otherwise awesome internship. My advice is to not underestimate anything, and send a ridiculous amount of emails if you think for a second that you're not in the know about something. (not like we didn't get compensation for the delay, however. We got to stay almost 6 months instead of the normal 3).