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List Price: $33.98 | | Label: Erato
Salesrank: 33285
Released: January 28, 2003 |
| Our Price: $11.99 |
| Used Price: $1.71 |
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| Media: Audio CD |
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Pergolesi: Marian Vespers Reviews:
One of the Great Tragedies of Musical History 
2009-08-20 - Giovanni Battista Pergolesi was born in 1710 and died at the age of 25 in 1736, twenty years before Mozart was born. If Mozart had died at 25, his last opera would have been Idomeneo and none of his greatest works, from the Abduction from the Seraglio to the Requiem, would have been composed. And think what music would never have been written if only 25 years had been allotted to Lassus, Haydn, or Janacek! Breath for mortal breath, one could make a case by comparison that Pergolesi was the greatest prodigy in musical history, particularly since his final works, the ineffable Stabat mater and the sublime Salve Regina, were composed on his death bed. What might he have written if he'd lived to a mature 35?
If it's the choicest performance of those two masterpieces that you want, read no further! My immediate recommendation would be the recording by Il Seminario Musicale, with Gerard Lesne and Veronique Gens singing. The Salve Regina is included on Disk 2 of this "Marian Vespers", sung by Sophie Danemen and Noemi Kiss with all the musical forces of Oxford backing them up, but the performance doesn't approach the exquisite virtuosity of Lesne's. The chief interest of this 2-CD recording by the Academy of Ancient Music and the Choir of New College Oxford is in the presentation of three Psalm settings -- Dixit Dominus, Laudate pueri, and Confiteabor -- usually incorporated in Marian vespers but composed independently at various stages of Pergolesi's short life. The 'Confiteabor' is an awesome piece, as fine as anything Pergolesi wrote, but all three Psalms could stand alone in concert performance. Stitching them together as elements of a hypothetical Vespers on the scale of Monteverdi's neither adds nor detracts from their magnificence.
Honestly, Pergolesi never wrote such a monumental Marian Vespers, and if he wrote anything approximating it, that music has been lost. Musicologist Malcolm Bruno has assembled the three Psalms and the Salve Regina with two sonatas for strings and a number of "contrafacta", that is, unfinished or sketchy compositions that he has, to one degree or another, reconstructed. The least effective of Bruno's contrafacta, to my ears, is the "Magnificat", which he has based on an incomplete secular cantata, underlaying the liturgical text and orchestrating the four movements quite grandly. The orchestration and the use of a large chorus, Bruno admits in his notes, is not what Giovanni Battista would have expected; to my taste, there's more of the English Handel in it than of the Italian Pergolesi. Let's be blunt. Heard as a single composition, this Marian Vespers lacks any kind of cohesion or development. The splitting of the two string sonatas into 'intermezzi' between the psalms was a bad idea, a fragmentation of Pergolesi's subtle symmetry that only adds to the 'jumpiness'.
I'd probably feel more generous toward this performance if it were offered as a program of separate compositions, rather than as a grandiose Reconstruction by an over-confident academic. And yet... like the previous reviewer who made the same complaints, I'm delighted enough by the singing and playing, and thrilled enough to have any recordings of the three Psalm settings, that I consider four stars the least I could award. After all, if I could descend to Hades like Orpheus or Hercules, and offer myself as a surrogate for Pergolesi, I'd at least consider the sacrifice.
One CD would be enough
2008-01-04 - An attempt to re-create something of various works can hardly be successful. Here, we have Pergolesi's compositions of his different creative periods and plus a spurious (though very Pergolesian) Magnificat. The result doesn't look convincing. I would prefer listening to only what has survived, without mixing and recreating the whole (the Introit and three Psalms are things to perform them as they are). Secondly, each of two sonatas for violin and cello was divided in two and placed between the psalms - it was a poor idea (I can understand the performer's wish to build an original version, but if you haven't a sufficient material, please, don't fabricate it. That is why it would be better to play what we have, but not what one would like to have). The sonatas themselves were played without any ispiration. Try, for example, the performance by I SOLISTI DI MILANO: they play a little romantic, but you will be enthralled by them for sure. Also, I didn't love the present version of Salve Regina - it seems quite monotonous, tempi of the movements aren't much varied.
But the Introit, Psalms and Magnificat are vivid and joyful. That is why I have given 4 stars
A pleasing recording of a pleasant work 
2003-08-05 - I bought this recording a few days ago and I have enjoyed it quite a lot. The orchestra and choir are very good and the soloists sing well. Sophie Daneman's sings the first big solo in the Dixit Dominus. The timbre of her voice is very beautiful and Pergolesi's vocal line is very beguiling. However, I find Daneman's vibrato is a little too wide and obvious. If she could have controlled this I would have awarded this recording five stars.
Unlike the Vesper Psalms of Biber, Monteverdi, Cavalli, Rosenmüller, Rigatti and other 17th century composers, Pergolesi's works are a much more modest sounding affair. It seems like Italian sacred music was getting thinner and less 'densely' composed in the 18th century? Pergolesi's music is somewhat like Vivaldi's in style. Of course, Pergolesi was a master of beautiful melodies and there is plenty of evidence of that talent in these Vesper Psalms.
This recording is well worth investigating by lovers of Baroque music as well as those new to Baroque sacred music.
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I have now spent a bit more time listening to this set. The choir is good but the soloists use far too much vibrato. I now wish that I hadn't bought this recording. It is pleasant but it seems to me that it will really only please people who do not normally listen to HIP/period instrument recordings. A special 'rap on the knuckles' goes to Sophie Daneman, whose vibrato is completely out of control on this recording. She has a beautiful basic timbre, but she spoils it with a very wide wobble. Listen to Maria Cristina Kiehr for an example of an Early Music soprano who sings this sort of music the right way! (or, at least, in a convincing way)
On the evidence of this recording, Ms Daneman wouldn't be out of place in an operetta company singing G&S!
I have changed my rating of this CD to a mere 3 stars.
