Search - Alessandro Scarlatti, Johann Sebastian Bach, Francesco Durante :: J.S. Bach: Psalm 51 after Pergolesi; A. Scarlatti, F. Durante: Concerti

A voice teacher and early music fan

George Peabody | Planet Earth | 12/30/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"BACH'S CREATIVE ENCOUNTER WITH PERGOLESI: Sunny Catholic Naples and Protestant Leipzig?????

My focus is obviously on Bach's version of the Pergolesi 'Stabat Mater'. Somewhere between 1742-1746 Bach made a transcription (or parody) of Perglesi's popular 'Stabat Mater', recasting the sorrows of the Virgin Mary, a meditative motet on the cleansing of original sin and the final reconciliation of the soul in Zion. Bach freely rearranges Pergolesi's numbers to suit his own text, after splicing livlier music for certain sections of the melodic or contrapuntal lines ad libitum,and after utilizing harmonies in the older more learned style of the medievalists. The emergent amalgam is a curious, but captivating twenty-one minutes of alternately longing dance-like sequences, with duets of striking color and emotional affect. The final dance or laud sounds Handelian in its devoted fervor.



All of this is handled beautifully by the soprano (Maya Boog) and the alto (Michael Chance). Even the aerial acrobatics required by the music and the somewhat awkward German text is done skillfully, and in fact truly marvelously. I have two other recordings of the 'Stabat Mater', both featuring Chance, and I sure would like to ask him how it felt to sing the two different versions? The Latin trips so nicely off the tongue, unlike the German text with its large number of hard consonents. Of course, it is because of Pergolesi's vocal writing which does make use of large skips, etc.



The two instrumental works, one by Scarlatti and one by Durante, are very well played by the 'Balthasar-Neumann-Ensemble'. This group brings together top international musicians to produce programs of outstanding artistic merit and interest for the concert hall and the stage, under the capable artistic direction of Thomas Hengelbrock.



THIS IS A TRULY GREAT RECORDING!!!!"