Stabat Mater And Requiem

Poulenc’s 'Stabat Mater', which he described as a ‘requiem without despair’, was written in 1950 following the death of Christian Bérard who designed the sets for Cocteau’s films and plays and was a leading figure of 1940s Paris. This masterly work, dedicated to the Virgin of Rocamadour, gives pride of place to the chorus and clearly shows its line of descent from the French grands motets. On completing it, Poulenc wrote to Pierre Bernac: "It’s good, because it’s completely authentic".

With this new release, Edward Gardner and the BBC Symphony Orchestra continue their series exploring Polish music for Chandos. This is the second volume in the survey of orchestral works by Karol Szymanowski. The first was well received by critics and the public alike. A review in BBC Music read: ‘Chandos’s [Polish series] reaches impressive heights… Gardner shows how he has become one of the finest non-Polish interpreters of Szymanowski.’

This set, issued to mark the 75th anniversary of Fricsay's birth, dates from late 1960 when the conductor was already suffering from the disease that killed him. It was to prove to be his final performance of the piece. I don't think it's fanciful to feel in this intensely dramatic and immediate reading that the conductor fully realized his own mortality. At any rate it's an interpretation of tragic force and lyrical beauty that eclipses most of its rivals. Fricsay was here working with a choir and orchestra entirely devoted to him and, as in the Shaw performance on Telarc/Conifer such familiarity pays huge dividends in terms of unified thought. Then, the circumstances of a live occasion seem to infect everyone concerned with a feeling of urgency.

On the final instalment of its Requiem series, the Flemish Radio Choir tackles Poulenc’s iconic Stabat Mater (1950) and Alfred Desenclos’ Requiem (1963), stunning works which steer clear of the typical Requiem horrors to convey a message of hope. Teaming up with the Brussels Philharmonic, the Flemish Radio Choir and its acclaimed director Hervé Niquet extract the emotional and rhetorical essence of music which is eminently French, unusually tender, and delicately majestic.

Antonín Dvorák's Stabat Mater, Op. 58, truly merits the adjective "tragic"; it was written after the deaths of two of the composer's children in succession, and his grief rolled out in great, Verdian waves. There are several strong recordings on the market, including an earlier one by conductor Jiří Bělohlávek himself, but for the combination of deep feeling, technical mastery from musicians and singers who have spent their lives getting to know the score, and soloists who not only sound beautiful but are seamlessly integrated into the flow, this Decca release may be the king of them all. To what extent was the strength of the performance motivated by Bělohlávek's likely fatal illness (he died days after the album entered the top levels of classical charts in the spring of 2017)? It's hard to say, although he also delivered top-notch performances of Dvorák's Requiem in his last days. The members of the Prague Philharmonic Choir sing their hearts out in the gigantic, shattering opening chorus, which has rarely if ever had such a mixture of the impassioned and the perfectly controlled. Sample the chorus "Virgo virginium praeclara" to hear the magically suspended quality Bělohlávek brings out of the singers in lightly accompanied passages.

The richness and splendour of French Baroque sacred music, by turns gravely sombre and spectacularly exuberant, have already been amply demonstrated by Hervé Niquet and Le Concert Spirituel through their series of recordings on Glossa of music by Marc-Antoine Charpentier. But it was not just in Paris or in the country’s religious foundations that such involved music-making was called upon, but also in cities such as Troyes and Châlons-sur-Marne where Pierre Bouteiller, maître de musique in cathedrals there during the reign of Louis XIV, composed his Missa pro defunctis, a beautiful setting scored for five voice parts with instrumental accompaniment.

Rossini's Stabat Mater was performed publicly in its final form in Paris on January 7, 1842. The first six sections of this ten-movement work had been composed earlier, on commission from Don Francesco de Varela, for an 1833 Good Friday performance in Madrid (with the last four movements written by Giuseppe Tadolini). The work was received enthusiastically in both of its incarnations and has remained a core piece of the choral repertory ever since.