Celeste Lazarenko and Helen Sherman are two dear friends of AHE, and two of the most brilliant exponents of both early and contemporary singing techniques, collaborate on a ravishing program of familiar and neglected gems, including Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater.

His untimely death at 26 caused Pergolesi to become the stuff of legend for centuries. So affecting are the opening minutes of his Stabat Mater that it’s easy to imagine that the composer was put on earth to write them just before being whisked off to heaven. Rousseau described this achingly beautiful interplay between soprano and mezzo as “the most perfect and touching duet to come from the pen of any composer”.

The entire 40-minute mini-oratorio, while a product of the Baroque, is written in the Italian ‘“galant’” style that had its final flowering in Haydn and Mozart, so this is a rare opportunity to hear it as the composer imagined it.