Boccherini composed his Stabat mater in 1781, for soprano and strings, then rewrote it in 1800 for three voices, elaborating it a good deal: it is the later version that has chiefly been performed until now. But an edition of the original has recently appeared and it is, I think, to be preferred, for although the trio writing and some of the enriched detail is appealing, the piece has more integrity as it was conceived than in its later, filled-out form. It is in 11 movements, most of them (as befits the text) rather slow and sometimes so heartfelt in expression as to be a trifle cloying—the style is very much like a later version of the Neapolitan church music of the earlier part of the century, of which Pergolesi's Stabat mater is of course the most familiar example and must certainly have been in Boccherini's mind.
Although the performance on this disc is fairly remote from anything like eighteenth-century style, I enjoyed a good deal of it. The work begins with an F minor grave, deeply pathetic in manner and giving the soprano an opportunity for some quite impassioned singing; and the second movement too, an allegro, is still quite chromatic and elegiac in tone, though in the third cheerfulness seems to break through, as it does several times, notably in the ''Pro peccatis''. But at the centre of the piece is a group of three movements that seem to me very appealing: the ''Eia mater'', a larghetto with cello obbligato, the ''Tui nati vulnerati'', a symphonic allegro with a central slower section (taken, I fear, far too slowly here), and the ''Virgo virginum'', with its delicately shaped melodic line floating above a pizzicato accompaniment, with muted violins, to very charming effect. Of the final movements, one is a decidedly odd fugue and the other two are sentimentalized here by being taken excessively slowly (though the ethereal effects in the last remain charming).
Some may find the music a little sugary for their taste, and the romantic, over-intense direction does nothing to mitigate it: but I confess to a fairly sweet musical tooth, at least as far as Boccherini is concerned, and I hope readers similarly inclined may be tempted to try the disc. The soprano has a full voice and a rather fulsome manner, but clearly means what she sings. There is very adequate orchestral playing but often the slow tempos, designed to allow the squeezing-out of every drop of sentiment, prove self-defeating, placing more stress on the emotional force of the music than it can quite bear and producing a slightly sticky effect.'