BaL 23.04.11 - Rossini: Stabat Mater

[Panjandrum]

Coming late to this BAL, having just caught up with it on the iplayer after a long Easter sojourn in foreign climes, I found it to be eminently sensible, and model of clear diction, with the presenters' very real learning worn lightly. I, for one, feel no imminent compulsion to augment my current library version of the Muti,even if it is no longer RO's first choice. However, for those lamenting the lack of an HIPP alternative, RO's own words from Gramophone in 2003, may be of interest. "Marcus Creed's recent Berlin recording, which uses period instruments and a small specialist choir, has a pleasingly 'personal' feel to it. But the version I have returned to with most pleasure is Muti's. He brings a sense of drama and spirituality to the piece and is well served by his soloists, notably the sweet-toned Catherine Malfitario and Agnes Baltsa, brooding and intense. Malfitano was the first singer to record the exquisite cadenza at the end of the 'Sancta Mater' which Rossini wrote for Clara Novello in 1850"

[amateur51]

Amateur 51 ! You said " rant over "in your post !!! Hence my reference to ranting

My apologies, barbirollians - so I did :doh:

Thanks for giving me the chance to apologise rather than just going away thinking "sad ol' duffer, he don't know what he's written half the time"

[Barbirollians]

I think this was an absolutely exemplary BAL - erudite, fascinating and well reasoned . Bravo

[Chris Newman]

What do others think of Rossini's "Stabat Mater"?

I came to it in my late youth through Giulini's performance at the Festival Hall and who had just knocked me in all directions with live performances and the "official" EMI recording of the Verdi Requiem and I accepted it with the same alacrity. However, if I suggested that choirs I was involved with put it on the reaction was akin to me suggesting we tried throwing stink bombs in church. It was "vulgar", "OTT", "cheap and nasty", the fugal Amen was "childish and inaccurately written" and so on. Yet I still love it, Richard Osborne in his notes for the Pappano recording talks of "real seriousness of purpose" and "splendid inspiration" in the double fugue and he calls the recollection "of the work's sombe opening ... an additional stroke of imagination tying the work's start and finish ... together." I agree with RO. What do others think?

[amateur51]

What do others think of Rossini's "Stabat Mater"?

I came to it in my late youth through Giulini's performance at the Festival Hall and who had just knocked me in all directions with live performances and the "official" EMI recording of the Verdi Requiem and I accepted it with the same alacrity. However, if I suggested that choirs I was involved with put it on the reaction was akin to me suggesting we tried throwing stink bombs in church. It was "vulgar", "OTT", "cheap and nasty", the fugal Amen was "childish and inaccurately written" and so on. Yet I still love it, Richard Osborne in his notes for the Pappano recording talks of "real seriousness of purpose" and "splendid inspiration" in the double fugue the calls the recollection "of the work's sombe opening ... an additional stroke of imagination tying the work's start and finish ... together." I agree with RO. What do others think?

I agree with you & RO, Chris - a splendid work.

Bit naughty of RO not to mention his [marginal] interest in the Pappano recording - or did he and I missed it?

[Panjandrum]

You can count me as one of the admirers of this work: in fact, an admiration which grows each time I hear the work. The debt which Verdi's own far better known latin religious text setting owes this work is incalculable.