This being a Swedish recording, you get photos of the performers (and of rocks in water) that look as though they came straight out of a 1950s Ingmar Bergman movie. The interpretations, though, are elegant and not particularly dark. The pairing here is the natural one: Pergolesi's swan-song Stabat Mater of 1736 and the entirely worthy work it was written to replace in the repertoire of a Neapolitan Catholic fraternity: the Stabat Mater of Alessandro Scarlatti. The Pergolesi work has a stark simplicity compared with ...
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This being a Swedish recording, you get photos of the performers (and of rocks in water) that look as though they came straight out of a 1950s Ingmar Bergman movie. The interpretations, though, are elegant and not particularly dark. The pairing here is the natural one: Pergolesi's swan-song Stabat Mater of 1736 and the entirely worthy work it was written to replace in the repertoire of a Neapolitan Catholic fraternity: the Stabat Mater of Alessandro Scarlatti. The Pergolesi work has a stark simplicity compared with Scarlatti's, but that was partly a function of his modernity; the temptation is to perform the work with death haunting every line (Pergolesi was indubitably very sick with tuberculosis at the time). The Stockholm Baroque Orchestra (so designated despite the fact that there is only one player per part, plus a small organ and archlute for continuo), soprano Susanne Rydén, and countertenor Mikael Bellini (both singers are Swedes) generally avoid this tendency, offering creamy renditions that...
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