The Stabat Mater Dolorosa first appeared in the second half of the 13th century as a lengthy poem set to music, generally attributed to Jacopone da Todi (d. 1306), an Umbrian Franciscan friar. It is one of the countless expressions of the affective piety that characterised Western late-medieval Christianity, encouraging intense and emotional identification (as fellow suffers) with Christ, his mother and other characters in the Christian story, often in minute detail. The Stabat Mater focuses closely on Mary’s abject sorrow as she stands at the foot of the cross, on which hangs the crucified body of her son. It has received many musical re-settings over the centuries, most famously by Palestrina in around 1590, and Pergolesi (1736), but also by Dvorˇák and Rossini, and in the 20th century, by Szymanowski (1926), Poulenc (1950) and Pärt (1985). James MacMillan (b. 1959) has a long history of writing in religious musical forms, and his 21st-century Stabat Mater is scored for choir and string orchestra. It was written with the particular strengths of Harry Christopher and The Sixteen in mind. It’s an intense, personal and captivating work, beautifully recorded in the Church of St Augustine’s in Kilburn, London. The interplay between voice…

Great respect has characterised Marc Minkowski’s decision to allow some 30 years of his career to pass before recording the St John. In choosing to use only eight singers he is at pains to create an intimate but intense reading of this most powerful work. This performance is based on the original 1724 version, but appends two arias from the revisions Bach made a year later, as well as employing later additions to the original orchestration (contrabassoon and theorbo) and a harpsichord in the continuo. Minkowski is intent on bringing out the radical musical drama that must have shocked, or at least perplexed, the good burghers of Leipzig that Good Friday afternoon in 1724. Eschewing the textural contrast between soloists and chorus, Minkowski differentiates between the various musical elements by adopting brisk tempos for choruses and deftly connecting them to recitatives, creating an almost frenetic telling of the story, in which Evangelist Lothar  Odinius plays an impressive role. The arias offer varied meditations on the action. Australian countertenor David Hansen delivers an impassioned account of the aria Von der Stricken. Fellow alto, Delphine Galou, sings the more famous Es ist vollbracht with great empathy. No one performance will ever have…

Move over John Cage and Henry Cowell. Chance music, it seems, existed long before last century. How surprising and intriguing to discover that the roll of the dice may well have determined the compositional method of a Mass that could have been written by the great polyphonist, Josquin des Prés. (Josquin was employed by the Sforza family, some of the biggest gamblers in 15th-century Milan.) Movements of the Missa Di Dadi (Dice Mass) are preceded by images of dice showing different numbers. These indicated to the tenors the proportional length of the base melody (a chanson by Robert Morton) to the other parts. As Peter Phillips points out in his engaging notes, these indications are a bit haphazard and fortunately the publisher (presumably not a gambler) wrote out the actual tenor part to avoid confusion. While all of this is quite amusing – and despite not knowing for certain the Mass is by Josquin – the music is certainly worthy of attention. The customary precision and blend of The Tallis Scholars is in evidence throughout, but the final Agnus Dei is particularly moving. Missa Une mousse de Biscaye also lacks firm evidence of authorship by Josquin. Based on a secular…

In his day, Giaches de Wert (1535-96) was the foremost composer of madrigals, most notably serving in the musically progressive Gonzaga court at Mantua and influencing the young Monteverdi. He had a considerable 12 books of madrigals to his name. What is less well known is that he also produced three books of motets which also display his madrigalian prowess. Many of the texts he set were not standard liturgical texts, but rather biblical stories that lent themselves to more programmatic treatment. Wert’s music was not the only colourful aspect of his life. Early on he married Lucrezia Gonzaga and produced at least six children. His appointment to Mantua was full of intrigue: several moves were made to discredit him, but he stuck to his work, despite being labelled a cuckold. (His wife had been having an affair with the composer who was passed over for Wert’s job.) Lucrezia came to a sticky end some years later when she was involved in a murderous plot to seize a noble title. Wert eventually had an affair of his own, with the widowed noblewoman and poet, Tarquinia Molza. Such was Wert’s musical worth that when this scandal was… Continue reading Get unlimited…

It’s Bach, Jim, but not always as we know it.

The German tenor explores Parsifal and Lohengrin, plus interviews with Evgeny Kissin, Paco Peña and more. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

If the musical night sky could be said to be littered with the glittering trails of falling stars, perhaps no single composer has fallen quite so far and so fast as Jacob Liebmann Beer (1791-1864), or Giacomo Meyerbeer as he came to be known. The darling of the Paris Opéra for 25 years as a result of the enduring success of Robert le Diable with its infamous ballet in which a graveyard full of deceased nuns rise up to cavort in the moonlight, the German-born Meyerbeer went on to dominate the French opera scene with a string of romantic and historical blockbusters such as L’Africaine (where the heroine expires from the scent of a deadly tropical tree), Les Huguenots (in which the three principals are simultaneously shot by a chorus of murderers), and Le Prophète (where the final scene calls for the entire cast to be blown up with gunpowder!). Within a decade of his demise, however, Meyerbeer began to suffer an almost total eclipse, a victim of his over-the-top plots, the new music of Wagner and his followers, and, some would suggest, prey to the nasty brand of anti-Semitism that came to a head in the… Continue reading Get…

Jonathan Holloway looks to “the bigger picture” with Taylor Mac, Under Siege and a Requiem for Cambodia on the bill. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

The acclaimed Australian soprano hopes to continue performing but will be moving to Perth in January.

Brett Weymark and SCC would have made Richard Gill proud, not to mention Britten.

Subtitled The Rise of English Polyphony 1270-1430, this latest recording from The Orlando Consort weaves a rich, stylistically diverse musical tapestry across nearly two centuries of early English polyphony. Originally formed in 1988 to explore repertoire from the period 1050-1550, the UK-based a cappella ensemble – currently comprising countertenor Matthew Venner, tenors Mark Dobell and Angus Smith and baritone Donald Greig – have occasionally branched out into contemporary music. Beneath the Northern Star finds them on home ground, featuring music by some of the leading lights of medieval English music such as Leonel Power and John Dunstaple, as well as lesser-known composers like Johannes Alanus, Thomas Damett, Robert Chirbury and the most prolific of all, Anonymous. All these motets and movements from mass settings are for three voices; the exception is the four-voice Credo from the Old Hall Manuscript which brings the recording to a close. The stylistic diversity is apparent in the variety of musical techniques, not just from composer to composer but from within different periods of a single composer’s career. Many of these devices are easy to hear once you know what you’re listening for. The second track, the anonymous Stella maris nuncuparis uses the rondellus technique,…

Osmo Vänskä gave us a superb Kullervo in 2001 as part of his lauded cycle with the Lahti Symphony, but this release justifies itself by preserving a programme celebrating Finnish musical identity recorded over several chilly Minnesota nights in February 2016. Premiered in 1892, the sprawling work was a watershed in Sibelius’ creative development – he effectively invented the Finnish musical idiom overnight – its runic tunes and “wind rustling through the pines” textures would be distilled in the later tone poems and symphonies. The work does have its longueurs – Vänskä is daringly expansive in the second movement (Kullervo’s Youth) yet it somehow works, despite its 19-minute duration. Lilli Paasikivi reprises her role as Kullervo’s sister; she pretty much owns the role, though her widening vibrato is worrying. Tommi Hakala is an excellent Kullervo. Vänskä maintains a fine balance of expansive atmosphere and thrilling bite though I miss the intensity of Berglund’s 1985 Helsinki recording with a blistering Jorma Hynninen at his peak. Commissioned as a companion piece for similar forces, Olli Kortekangas’ Migrations is a tribute to the Finnish immigration to North America on texts by Sheila Packa, a Minnesotan of Finnish heritage. A fine… Continue reading Get…