Pergolesi reviews

Two of Bach’s most radiant cantatas for alto solo provide a contemplative frame for Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater – a work Bach so admired that he made his own German arrangement. Despite this connection, though, their sound worlds are poles apart: Bach’s – abstract and reflective; Pergolesi’s – sensuous, emotional, quasi-operatic.

The liner notes for Adriano in Siria, Pergolesi’s 1734 setting of Metastasio’s drama of resistance and romantic intrigue in Roman-occupied Antioch, contain a startling piece of information. At some point (or points) during the Naples performances, Adriano was interrupted by a parallel production of Pergolesi’s comic intermezzo, Livietta e Tracollo.

Two popular works in performances characteristic of Harnoncourt, with bulging climaxes and eccentric tempos, but glorious singing and great soloists; no texts, as for all these discs.

Michael Tanner

Operatic stars meet early music on this live recording, made last year at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. Success is mixed. The 26-year-old Pergolesi composed his Stabat Mater as he lay dying of tuberculosis. The work of a genius cut down, its restless pulses, strained suspensions and inexorable walking basses mix pathos with beauty. This mix, in all its shades, only partly emerges in this performance. Sonya Yoncheva brings to her lines a fragile sensitivity that astonished me, given the power of her voice.

Pergolesi’s intermezzo sparkles in this smile-inducing account, coupled with Sesto Bruscantini’s peerless Cimarosa, pure heaven in every note and verbal inflection.

Max Loppert

This cycle of seven cantatas sets the last words of Christ of the Cross and meditations upon them addressed to the soul (or anima) of the faithful disciple. It was long thought to be the work of Pergolesi – certainly, there are more than faint echoes of his Stabat Mater here – and the recent unearthing of forgotten manuscripts tips the balance in favour of this attribution.

This world premiere recording crackles with excitement. Bubbling tempos sweep us through a story of love’s swingeing consequences. What evidently fired Pergolesi’s imagination in this libretto is its intermingling of heroism with humanism. To win the prize of Aristea’s hand in an Olympic competition, Licida engages his best friend, a prize athlete, to impersonate him.

The 300th anniversary of Pergolesi’s birth is marked by another contribution to the many recordings of his Stabat Mater. They range from the ethereal male soprano of Jörg Waschinski with Michael Chance (Naxos) to Gillian Fisher and Chance again (Hyperion) from 1987, still among the best.

 These discs complete Claudio Abbado’s three-part tribute to Pergolesi, born 200 years ago. (Disc 1 was reviewed here, 11/09.) They are most revealing, showing Pergolesi’s sureness of touch as a craftsman, melding together the old-style contrapuntal skill learnt as a student at a Conservatoire in Naples with the elegant tunefulness of contemporary Neapolitan opera.