Breathtaking Pergolesi from Florilegium

Your free download this week is from Florilegium's recording of Pergolesi's Stabat Mater for Channel Classics, our July 2010 Choral & Song choice (CCS SA 29810).

Soprano Elin Manahan Thomas and countertenor Robin Blaze join the single strings of Florilegium for the opening movement of the Stabat Mater, most likely written by the Italian composer during his time at a Franciscan monastery in Pozzuoli after falling ill with tuberculosis.

'Both singers are intensively sensitive,' writes George Pratt in BBC Music Magazine. 'They have no inhibitions about Pergolesi's operatic roots ... above all, the spaciousness of the surround-sound recording is often breathtaking.'

Download instructions:

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