Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, his achingly lovely swan song, was most likely written with two male singers in mind. Yet it's not often recorded that way, and the present release, with a genuine male soprano and alto, represents something rarer still, perhaps because not a lot of male singers can pull off the higher ranges convincingly without belting. Both the singers are billed as countertenors on the album, but Romanian-born Valer Barna-Sabadus, who looks like he just stepped out of a rock & roll dive, is a true soprano. ...
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Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, his achingly lovely swan song, was most likely written with two male singers in mind. Yet it's not often recorded that way, and the present release, with a genuine male soprano and alto, represents something rarer still, perhaps because not a lot of male singers can pull off the higher ranges convincingly without belting. Both the singers are billed as countertenors on the album, but Romanian-born Valer Barna-Sabadus, who looks like he just stepped out of a rock & roll dive, is a true soprano. Check out his soaring lines in the "Cujus animan," track 2, for the real news on this album. It's not that he delivers operatic power; plenty of countertenors can do that. It's the lightness and balance -- even a certain soberness -- that fit the work to its intended church ambiance. He can certainly execute the blooming operatic style, which he deploys to perfectly good effect in the choral psalm "Laudate Pueri Dominum," which rounds out the album; it's that he doesn't feel it's...
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