Boccherini / d’Astorga - Stabat Mater | Hyperion - Helios CDH55287

Boccherini / d’Astorga - Stabat Mater

£10.40

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Label: Hyperion - Helios

Cat No: CDH55287

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Genre: Vocal/Choral

Release Date: 2nd March 2015

Contents

Artists

Susan Gritton (soprano)
Sarah Fox (soprano)
Susan Bickley (mezzo-soprano)
Paul Agnew (tenor)
Peter Harvey (bass)
King’s Consort

Conductor

Robert King

Works

Boccherini, Luigi

Stabat Mater

d'Astorga, Emanuele

Stabat Mater

Artists

Susan Gritton (soprano)
Sarah Fox (soprano)
Susan Bickley (mezzo-soprano)
Paul Agnew (tenor)
Peter Harvey (bass)
King’s Consort

Conductor

Robert King

About

Boccherini wrote very little vocal music, but he left two settings of the Stabat mater. He set it first in 1781 for solo soprano and strings and then in 1800 for two sopranos and tenor, and was clearly influenced by the hugely popular Pergolesi Stabat mater of 1736. There are many similarities in the notation and harmony - even the same key of F minor is used. The writing is of extraordinary individuality, seeming to come straight from the heart.

Emanuele d’Astorga was one of the more colourful figures of early eighteenth-century music, his life the stuff of subject of legend as much as of fact. Over 150 chamber cantatas survive, but by far his most enduring work has proved to be this setting of the Stabat mater, his only known sacred composition. Throughout it we hear Astorga’s gift for writing warm melodies, typical of the Neapolitan style of the time, which movingly capture the melancholy of this most desolate of sacred texts.

Remarkable and beautiful settings’ - Gramophone

Heart-melting … full of grace and beauty’ - BBC Music Magazine

Outstanding performances’ - American Record Guide

In both works, the solo voices, strings and organ continuo and the 18-voice chorus in the d’Astorga, present this well-conceived programme in a highly attractive and stylistic manner under the expert direction of Robert King, while the recorded sound is wonderfully transparent … it would be difficult to imagine more satisfactory interpretations than these’ - Gramophone Early Music

[from CDA67108]

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