Giovanni Battista PERGOLESI (1710-1736)
Sacred Works - Volume 2
Missa S.Emidio [30.01]
Veronica Cangemi (soprano); Sara Mingardo (alto);
Salve Regina in F minor [15.20]
Sara Mingardo (alto)
Laudate pueri Dominum for soprano, mezzo, chorus and orchestra [18.33]
Rachel Harnisch (soprano); Teresa Romano (mezzo)
Manca la guida al pie from La conversion e monte di San Guglielmo
duca d’Aquitania (1731) [8.40]
Veronica Cangemi (soprano)
Coro della Radiotelevisione Svizzera and the Orchestra Mozart/Claudio Abbado
rec. Chiesa di Santa Cristina della Fondazza, May-June 2009
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON ARCHIV 477 8463 [72.49]
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 31st 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
Subtle and beautiful … most sensitively accompanied by Abbado... see Full
Review
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