Hidden treasures - Gioacchino Rossini - "Stabat Mater" (1842) - "Quando corpus morietur" & "Amen" скачать в хорошем качестве

Hidden treasures - Gioacchino Rossini - "Stabat Mater" (1842) - "Quando corpus morietur" & "Amen"

Painting: "The adoration of the name of the Lord" by Francisco de Goya. History (based on materials from Richard Osborn's biography "Rossini"): During a working visit to Spain in 1831, arranged by his financial advisor, Alejandro Aguado, Rossini received a commission from the archdeacon of Madrid to compose a new setting of "Stabat Mater". Having completed only six (No. 1 and 5-9) of the work's twelve movements by the spring of 1832, Rossini asked a fellow composer, Giovanni Tadolini, to finish the rest. The resulting work was performed in Madrid on Good Friday, 1833. The manuscript remained unpublished in the archdeacon's possession before his death. The score was ultimately sold to a Parisian music publisher, Aulagnier, who promptly printed it. Rossini, though in poor health, protested, selling the rights to a fully Rossinian "Stabat Mater" to another publisher, Troupenas. A bitter court case ensued, at the end of which Rossini was deemed to be the lawful owner of his own work. The composer was now able to replace Tadolini's inserts with newly composed music, trimming the work down to ten movements. Extracts from the new work were performed privately in Paris before a licensed production was staged at the Theatre Italien on the 7th of January, 1842 with a starry quartet of Tamburini, Grisi, Emma Albertazzi and Mario as the soloists. The premiere was a triumph: the brother Escudiers who oversaw the first run reported that "the audience left the theater moved and seized by an admiration that quickly won all Paris", Rossini being hailed as a national hero. Yet professional assessments of the new work were mixed with German critics noting, as poet Heinrich Heine put it, that the piece was "too worldly, playful for the subject", while the French music historian Chouquet remarked that "religion in the South is a very different thing from what it is in the North". Narrative: "Stabat Mater", most notably set by Pergolesi, is originally a Roman Catholic sequence, describing in striking detail the suffering of Mary "who stood in tears beside the Cross" during Christ's crucifixion. The hymn consists of twenty verses. Mary's torment is the subject of the first eight, while the remaining sections deal with the impassioned expressions of empathy of the people around her, culminating in a prayer for grace at Judgment Day. The subject is extremely potent, and Mary herself is one of Christianity's most majestic symbols, yet upon first meeting Rossini's "Stabat Mater" seems to have been composed without the tragedy of the text in mind. Music: If one is to approach Rossini's opus awaiting religious zeal, disappointment is imminent, as most numbers of the work do not possess a serious tone. Indeed, the soloists' music (save for a beautifully handled choral "Eja Mater" with solo interjections from the bass) is operatic in character and actually contradicts the sternness of the text. This notion is nowhere more apparent than in the tenor's light, graceful "Cujus animam" with its exposed high notes meant to describe Mary's "groaning heart ". One of the modern reviewers goes as far as suggesting that to truly enjoy the work's many musical jewels (for example, the bass' gorgeous "Pro peccatis" and a Mozartian quartet with lyric ornamental passages) one should forget the textual travesty that actually occurs in the process. Whereas these notions are apt for the work's familiar movements, the final two numbers, presented here in complete form, are both of a clearly different nature, being dark, ominous pieces that resonate with the musical traditions of the sacred works of Bach and Handel (perhaps, sounding as an early echo of the illuminating "Kyrie" of the later "Petite messe solennelle"). The unaccompanied "Quando corpus morietur ", a prayer to God to "grant my soul the glory of Paradise", features a chromatically embellished descending scale of breathtaking simplicity and the utmost nobility. The number was originally intended by Rossini to be performed by the quartet of soloists, though it is often transposed to chorus which works well as an evocation of early music. The final allegro "In sempiterna saecula", a double fugue, is a remarkable 1841 addition to the score with thrilling polyphonic interplay between the chorus and the orchestra. The movement's sections are strikingly separated by an effective restatement of the work's introduction which becomes a chilling motive, tying the two parts of the sequence, written between ten years, into a cohesive whole. Two wonders that negate any feeling of discomfort with some of the more secular-sounding movements of the work. Recording: The 2003 Harmonia Mundi recording under Marcus Creed is a wonderfully intimate reading of the work by the Riak-Kammerchor, Akademie fur Alte Musik Berlin and an involved quartet of soloists. Hope you'll enjoy =).