This release by Ensemble Resonanz is noteworthy in several ways. First, Ensemble Resonanz is not a Baroque group but has specialized mostly in contemporary music, sometimes in combination with standard repertory. Perhaps there's more money in even the much-recorded Pergolesi Stabat Mater than in their usual fare, or perhaps the motivation was purely artistic. Ensemble Resonanz plays in a historically oriented style, with period bows and, more strikingly, in meantone temperament. Listen to the intervals of a third; the major ...
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This release by Ensemble Resonanz is noteworthy in several ways. First, Ensemble Resonanz is not a Baroque group but has specialized mostly in contemporary music, sometimes in combination with standard repertory. Perhaps there's more money in even the much-recorded Pergolesi Stabat Mater than in their usual fare, or perhaps the motivation was purely artistic. Ensemble Resonanz plays in a historically oriented style, with period bows and, more strikingly, in meantone temperament. Listen to the intervals of a third; the major thirds are brighter, the minor thirds darker, and that plays into the most distinctive feature of the album: the radical emotionalism of the interpretation by Ensemble Resonanz and conductor Riccardo Minasi. Minasi takes the position that for an audience of the 1720s, Pergolesi's music was a real shock, not just the stylistic turning point represented in music history textbooks, but an absolute sensation. Performing the usual version of the Stabat Mater with two solo female singers...
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