Rossini's Stabat Mater and Verdi's Four Sacred Pieces | Bristol Choral Society

Verdi and Rossini hadn’t devoted a lifetime to opera only to pull on monks’ robes at the church door. Tonight’s sacred music is fervent, utterly sincere, and, with a fine quartet of soloists, heavenly!

Viva Italia - and in this his bicentenary year, Viva Verdi! Tonight we spotlight two works completed after their composers’ retirement from the musical theatre, unwilling, notwithstanding, to let old habits die hard. Happily our outstanding quartet of young soloists pools a wealth of experience honed with the leading opera companies in the UK and beyond.

A sacred postscript to the Indian summer that produced Otello and Falstaff, Verdi’s wonderfully contrasted Quattro Pezzi Sacri range from a prayerful unaccompanied Ave Maria to the vividly-conceived, double-chorus-and-orchestra Te Deum; while the deeply-felt Stabat Mater affords intriguing comparisons with Rossini’s decade-in-the-making large scale opus - its famously ardent Cujus animam and the solemn ecclesiastical pomp and circumstance of the closing double fugue, unforgettable.

Reviews of recent Bristol Choral Society concerts:

'a superb and impressive performance by the choir' - Brahms's Requiem Nov 2012; 'a fabulous performance' and Adrian Partington's 'masterful rendition' - Handel Messiah Dec 2012

Visit Bristol Choral Society's website or view the season brochure

4 Sacred Pieces (Quattro pezzi sacri)

Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)

Stabat Mater

Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868)

Location