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Editorial Reviews

Among the numerous recordings of Pergolesi's "Stabat Mater in F major" on the market, and the only slightly less numerous readings of the two Salve Regina settings recorded here, this disc stands out sharply. Pergolesi was criticized during his own brutally short life for his operatic settings of sacred music, and his critics would have had to be carried out from these performances in a cold sweat. The strongest points in the disc's favor are the voices of soprano Dorothea Röschmann and countertenor David Daniels, whose lush duets extract maximum sensuousness from Pergolesi's long-limbed lines. The entire program works to set off the virtues of these two extraordinary singers. Each takes one of the two solo-voice Salve Regina settings, and the listener can experience their vocal personalities separately as well as together. The "Salve Regina in F minor" is a transposition, dating back to Pergolesi's time, that was made in order to allow male altos to sing the work. Daniels is the really dramatic one, with the prayer to Mary of those "mourning and weeping in this land of exile" serving as a vehicle for full-on operatic plaints, while Röschmann is more abstract but no less moving. Together they have a really rare chemistry. The question mark for the listener here is the accompanying Europa Galante ensemble under the leadership of Fabio Biondi. It consists only of a string quintet, with one instrument per part. The singers adapt themselves beautifully to this chamber context, and the concept as a whole hangs together. But the individual listener may experience the music as either haunting or attenuated. The advent of online sampling, fortunately, means that no on has to guess, and this recording is certainly worth sampling for anyone interested in the personal, tragic music written at the end of Pergolesi's life. James Manheim, All Music Guide

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