Chandos re-release Hickox’s 1989
Stabat
Mater as part of their “Hickox Legacy” series, remembering
the great British conductor who died in 2008. Hickox was always very
good at big choral spectaculars - go to his
Gerontius,
Carmina
Burana or Verdi
Requiem for proof of that. In many ways he
is the finest thing about this recording. The opening movement proceeds
with a steady, ineluctable tread that gives it an unarguable sense of
purpose, and Hickox isn’t ashamed of the sorrow that hangs over
the subject material. He whips the orchestra and chorus into an intense
frenzy in the
Inflammatus, and he (almost) drives the music over
the cliff in the final pages of the
Amen. Many of the central
movements are more sedate and less exciting. That helps to point up
the sense of drama in the climaxes so it isn’t necessarily a bad
thing. Using a chamber orchestra also helps to shine a light on the
inner textures of the work, and Chandos have done a very good job of
capturing the sound in a recording of transparency and clarity.
Elsewhere, though, the performance is a little “standard”;
nothing wrong with it, per se, but it doesn’t quite stand up to
the finest competitors. The chorus, for example, sound very good in
many ways, especially the thoughtful moments such as the
Eja, mater
and
Quando corpus morietur. At other points, however, they sound
rather too “British”; in other words too restrained and
proper. It’s a particular problem in the final movement where
I yearned for the Latin fire of
Pappano’s
Santa Cecilia chorus. Interestingly, the same chorus do a much better
job for István Kertész in his fantastic 1971 recording
for Decca.
The soloists, too, are fine, without being outstanding. Best of all
is Della Jones, who sings
Fac ut portem with commitment and beauty,
and is altogether better to listen to than the often histrionic Helen
Field. Roderick Earle’s bass is very good, if perhaps a little
growly in places, and Arthur Davies is a strong tenor who copes with
the difficult tessitura very well. The moments where the soloists sing
together are very satisfying.
All told, then, this is a perfectly good recording of the
Stabat
Mater, and something you can be happy with at this bargain price.
However, it doesn’t hold its own against the competition, especially
the fantastic solo singing and thorough commitment of Kertész’s
version or, more recently, the
stunning recording that
Antonio Pappano released from Rome in 2010.
That most recent version is probably the finest recording the work has
ever had and is worth the higher price.
Simon Thompson
