Stabat mater*. Salve regina in C minor.

Emma Kirkby (sop); *James Bowman (alto); Academy of Ancient Music / Christopher Hogwood

L'Oiseau- Lyre Florilegium 425 692-40H; 425 692-20H (52 minutes: DDD). Texts and translations included.

Stabat mater—selected comparison:

Fisher, Chance, King's Consort, King (11/88) CDA66294

Pergolesi's setting of the Stabat mater was commissioned, probably by the Neapolitan brotherhood of the Cavalieri della Vergine dei dolori, to replace an earlier one by Alessandro Scarlatti.

While Pergolesi clearly took Scarlatti's structure as his model and wrote for similar forces – soprano and alto voices with string accompaniment – in few other respects does the later setting recall the earlier one. As an interesting note by the Italian scholar Francesco Degrada points out, Pergolesi's orchestra functions more as an accompanist than being an integral part of the vocal counterpoint; but he is misleading in suggesting that Scarlatti, unlike Pergolesi, had been obliged to resort to recitative. Other than two sections of arioso in Scarlatti's setting, there is an absence of recitative dictated, as with Pergolesi, by the nature of the Stabat mater poem. Two distinctions between the earlier and the later settings lie in the galant idiom of Pergolesi's music and in the greater emphasis which he placed on the voices.

Of the several recent recordings of the Stabat mater that I have heard, I find this new one the most affecting and the most stylish. Emma Kirkby and James Bowman enjoy a warm musical rapport and are pleasantly balanced in their duets. Neither singer shies away from the sensuous vocal writing, indeed albeit with the requisite restraint they seem to revel in it and that is surely how it might have been in the Naples of the 1730s. Both artists phrase their music gracefully with an easy assurance where ornaments are concerned; they beckon irresistibly to the listener to share in an effusion of beautiful sounds and I was certainly drawn in right from the start. The Salve regina, though considerably more concise than the Stabat mater, is hardly less appealing. This one, the better known of two authentic settings by Pergolesi, is in C minor and scored for soprano voice with strings. Emma Kirkby gives a compelling performance, tonally pure, expressive, tender and affectingly poignant. The strings of the Academy of Ancient Music are disciplined—more so than sometimes – providing throughout the disc all the sympathetic support one could wish for.

The performances are recorded in an ideally resonant acoustic which picks up nuances in voices and instruments alike. Full texts in Latin, English, French and German are included. Strongly recommended, but I should add that strong competition is provided by Gillian Fisher and Michael Chance on a recent Hyperion disc. But the earlier recording, though by no means lacking in fervour, does not realize the expressive warmth of the singing on the new issue and on balance I prefer the somewhat larger body of strings which Hogwood assembles.

Nicholas Anderson