I don’t really know why, but I felt quite
surprised at first when I heard that Claudio Abbado had recorded
not one but three discs of sacred music by Pergolesi. This ill-fated
and tragically short-lived composer was born in January 1710,
so this year is the occasion for a 300 year celebration. My reaction
was caused, no doubt, by having been hoodwinked over the past
two decades into thinking that the baroque is the preserve of
the specialist early-music performer.
Abbado has decreed that he will be making 2010 his “Pergolesi
Year”. As I write the final volume of the three has now emerged.
The longest work on the disc is the
Missa S.Emidio which
comprises a
Kyrie and a
Gloria. The former takes
up only four minutes at most, so the emphasis is very much on
the celebratory
Gloria. It seems to have been written following
the earthquakes in Naples of 1731 and 1732 when “the citizens
chose Saint Emidius, protector, as their patron saint and marked
this with a celebration on December 31
st 1732”. This
is recounted in Davide Verga’s interesting booklet notes. The
composer divided the work up neatly between soloists and duettists
and chorus items. The Coro della Radiotelevisione Svizzera is
rather large by the prevailing standards of early music performance.
Abbado almost treats them as if they were singing some vast ‘Romantic’
work. Even so the singing is crisp, precise and expressive achieving
exactly what the conductor seems to want. This is a rarely heard
work and it should not be. There is great pathos in the ‘Qui tollis’
and ‘Qui sedes’ and unremitting joy in the opening chorus and
in the final ‘Cum sancto’. Truly a find and from this recording
more performances must surely arise.
For many, Pergolesi’s
Salve Regina will begin rather like
his incredibly moving setting of the famous ‘Stabat Mater’ with
its suspensions, chromaticisms and “rapt contemplation”. The
Salve
Regina which is an ancient hymn to the Virgin (Hail O Queen,
Mother of mercy) also ends in a similar style and mood. In between
is a more lively movement, the 'Eia ergo’, and a major key, moderato,
’Et Jesum benedictum’. Sara Mingardo is generally a very controlled
contralto with a beautiful tone in the slower sections. I am less
happy about her prominent vibrato in the middle movements. Veronica
Cangemi is a fine soprano and one unknown to me until now. Incidentally,
as in the
Gloria, each section of the text is separately
tracked by Archiv – very useful.
When you hear the
Laudate pueri Dominum you might initially
consider Handel to have been a strong influence but there is something
about the mezzo solo ‘A solis ortu’ and the fine fugal finale
which seems to be just too Italian and rococo. No matter how you
look at it this brazen D major setting of Psalm 113 is a bright
affair. The exception, interestingly enough, is the first part
of the ‘Gloria’ for solo soprano. It is reflective and, as Davide
Verga says, “it is a religious experience intensified by the perception
of human fragility”. How apt that is in Pergolesi’s case. The
scoring for two soloists, chorus and an orchestra of strings with
celebratory trumpets and horns as well as oboes all helps to set
the mood in which the solos and chorus are, as above, evenly divided.
Both Rachel Harnisch and Teresa Romano are well cast in their
brief roles and both have an appropriate sense of style with immaculate
diction. This all serves to enhance the impression made by this
fine and original work.
An example of the expressive side of Pergolesi which may come
as a surprise to those who mainly know his music through the small-scale
operas like
La Serva Padrona, can be heard in the all too
brief Recit and Aria
E dover che le luci - Manca la guida al
pie from his 1731 sacred drama
The Conversion and Death
of Saint William, Duke of Aquitaine. It’s a curious subject,
you might think, but one commissioned from the very young composer
on his leaving the ‘Conservatorio de Pueri de Gesu Cristo’ in
Naples where, as a violinist and composer, he had made such an
impression as a teenager. This is a
da capo aria and finds
soloist Veronica Cangemi in very good form just as she is in the
Gloria. She decorates the repeat so subtly and beautifully and
is also most sensitively accompanied by Abbado’s orchestral strings.
This is for me, quite the highlight of the entire disc.
Until now, choral groups have probably not considered Pergolesi
as a composer that they might add to their repertoire. I am not
sure at this stage how easy it is to obtain editions of this or
any of his sacred music but with this disc and the others from
Abbado it will surely give conductors an incentive to look again
at this young composer. On reflection I feel that, had he lived,
he may well have become the Italian baroque Mozart. His early
talent so unfulfilled seems to indicate just that.
Gary Higginson
Notes:
Volume 1: Deutsche Grammophon Archiv 477 8077 Stabat Mater;
Violin Concerto; Salve Regina - Giuliano Carmignola (violin),
Rachel Harnisch, Sara Mingardo, Julia Kleiter; Orchestra Mozart/Claudio
Abbado
Volume 3: Deutsche Grammophon Archiv 4778465 Dixit
Dominus, Salve Regina in A minor, Confitebor tibi, Domine, Chi
non ode e chi non vede - Rachel Harnisch, Julia Kleiter, Rosa
Bove, Lucio Gallo, Coro della Radiotelevisione Svizzera, Orchestra
Mozart/Claudio Abbado
Abbado’s original recording of the Pergolesi Stabat Mater
can still be heard on Deutsche Grammophon 415 1032
Veronica Cangemi (soprano) 
