Hi Res Harry Christophers James Macmillan Stabat Mater 17 2005

Simon-Pierre Bestion has chosen to mirror two Stabat Mater that are more than 150 years apart: "in these two works I can feel the same tonal language, the same expression of sorrow" says the founder of La Tempête… "I have decided to ‘augment’ Scarlatti’s orchestration and ‘diminish’ Dvořák’s, so they can meet on even ground. To the Scarlatti I have added string parts sometimes doubling the vocal lines, colla parte , as was often done at the period: this not only allows the sound to be amplified, but adds an extra timbre to the voice.

For their first recording with harmonia mundi, Gustavo Gimeno and the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg revisit Rossini’s famous Stabat Mater. This work, composed after the premature end of his career in the theatre, has sometimes been criticised for its exuberance and operatic vocal writing. But that is also what makes it a unique and spellbinding work. The team assembled for this recording has perfectly understood this, and dares to present a reading that is as moving as it is exhilarating!

Does music add substance to words or is music inspired by them? Songs of departure and farewell are deeply rooted in the great tradition of British choral music, nourished by ancient myths of testing journeys, wayside transformations and homecomings. The transcendent nature of music and the power of poetry to challenge and alter perceptions of reality – harnessed by English composers over many centuries – flow through a programme that invites contemplation of life and death, of love and loss, creation and eternity. In a journey covering six centuries of musical history, The Sixteen performs a cappella anthems with powerful texts by writers as varied as Edmund Spenser, Christopher Fry and W.H. Auden.

The ensemble Aedes began it's musical journey with Poulenc, under the impetus of conductor Mathieu Romano. Here, at the head of Les Siècles, Romano returns to the unclassifiable composer to record two of his major works. In the pious contemplation of the Litanies, here performed in the manuscript version, and the orchestral luxuriance of the Stabat Mater, spirituality is expressed through music that is lively, sensitive and even, at times, sensuous.

For the problem of ‘genuine’ and ‘spurious’ works by Pergolesi has preoccupied musicologists for centuries. Of the approximately one hundred and fifty works that circulate under his name, he probably composed only thirty or so. Most of them were attributed to him posthumously, since publishers such as Bremner hoped to drum up better business thereby.

King Charles II liked to project a strong, stable, divinely legitimated image. Whilst that image had no basis in reality, the scale of his deception and financial skulduggery did not emerge until 19th-century historians discovered secret treaty documents between Charles and King Louis XIV of France. Purcell had no idea of course, and so all of the music on this album celebrates the political triumphs that he and his colleagues thought they had witnessed. It includes the quite brilliant Welcome Songs 'Welcome to all the pleasures' (with its superb six-part fanfares to St Cecilia in the final chorus) and 'From hardy climes'.

Agostino Steffani gehört zu den bemerkenswertesten Gestalten des europäischen Barock, war nicht nur Komponist, sondern auch Priester und Diplomat.

PRJCT Amsterdam and its artistic director Maarten Engeltjes present two of the greatest vocal works of the baroque era: Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater and Vivaldi’s Nisi Dominus. While Vivaldi’s virtuosic piece contemplates the helplessness of people when God does not support their efforts, Pergolesi’s portrait of the weeping Mary at the Cross embodies what the “nameless” parents of a deceased child go through. In the Stabat Mater, Engeltjes’s counter-tenor blends together seamlessly and soothingly with Shira Patchornik’s soprano voice, resulting in an interpretation that is both profound and deeply relatable.

Despite all the differences in the musical language of the works by the Polish composers Karol Szymanowski and Krzysztof Penderecki included on this recording, they are united by their quality as a lament: Szymanowski's Stabat mater, completed in 1926 and based on a Polish translation rather than the original Latin text of the medieval poem, is still considered one of the most important contributions to 20th-century music.

Originally from northern California, Tyler Futrell is an eclectic Oslo-based composer. His music attempts to synthesise almost contradictory historical branches yet his goal remains to write coherent music combining intellectual interest and perceptual fascination.