In Volume Four of his General History of Music (1776-89)
Charles Burney provides a view of Pergolesi and his music some
fifty years after his death. He describes Pergolesi as “the child
of taste and elegance, and nurstling of the Graces”. His development
as a composer is seen in terms of an abandonment of what was merely
academically correct: “at the age of fourteen, he began to perceive
that taste and melody were sacrificed to the pedantry of learned
counterpoint, and after vanquishing the necessary difficulties
in the study of harmony, fugue, and scientific texture of the
parts, he intreated his friends to take him home [i.e. away from
the Conservatory in Naples], that he might indulge his own fancies,
and write such Music as was most agreeable to his natural perceptions
and feelings. The instant he quitted the conservatorio, he totally
changed his style, and adopted that of Vinci, of whom he received
lessons in vocal composition, and of Hasse … With equal simplicity
and clearness, he seems to have surpassed them both, in graceful
and interesting melody”.
Burney acknowledges
that Pergolesi’s sacred music was controversial: “The church
Music of Pergolesi has been censured by his countryman, Padre
Martini, as well as by some English musical critics, for too
much levity of movement, and a dramatic cast, even in some of
his slow airs; while, on the contrary, Eximeno days, that ‘he
never heard, and perhaps never shall hear, sacred Music accompanied
with instruments, so learned and so divine, as the Stabat
Mater’ … The works of this master form an aera in modern
Music”.
The terms of the
debate about compositions such as :Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater
remain much the same; more than a few modern listeners find
it too theatrical, too operatic. Such listeners are unlikely
to be well disposed to this reissued recording under the direction
of Rinaldo Alessandrini. Alessandrini is not a conductor ever
likely to underplay the dramatic, to understate dynamic contrasts
or unexpected harmonic touches. Rather, we get some decidedly
quick and some almost indulgently slow tempos; the dynamic contrasts
are, if anything heightened, and there are some starling and
unexpected accents. This is a performance full of passion and,
yes, full of theatricality. In its moments of calmness, in its
“slow airs”, this is a performance which has a remarkably poignant
beauty. Sara Mingardo’s singing is a constant joy and Gemma
Bertagnoli’s soprano complements Mingardo’s alto delightfully,
even if there is the slightest sense of unease on the very highest
notes. But it is Alessandrini’s vision of the work which makes
this one of the best of available versions of a much recorded
work. To return to Burney once more, this is a recording which
enables us to have a full sense of those qualities of “clearness,
simplicity, truth, and sweetness of expression” which the great
historian thought of as characteristic of the composer. The
small string forces used by Alessandrini ensure both clarity
of texture and an absence of the syrupy sweetness that one encounters
in some versions of the work. I wouldn’t want to have only one
version of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater – but this one version
I wouldn’t want to be without.
A final quotation
from Burney: “It is Mr. Walpole’s opinion that Mr. Gray first
brought the compositions of Pergolesi into England”. Horace
Walpole is Burney’s source here and we cannot be sure that Gray
was really such a pioneer. But there is a nice symbolism in
the story. In English poetry Thomas Gray is one of the earliest
representatives of a shift in style and sensibility – from the
neo-classicism of the Augustans to the first phases of pre-Romanticism.
Though the analogy is not an exact one, a not dissimilar position
in the history of Italian music might perhaps be allotted to
Pergolesi. His work represents a shift in sensibility, in musical
taste – and that shift is, in microcosm, represented on this
disc, where Pergolesi’s setting of the Stabat Mater is
coupled with the earlier one by Alessandro Scarlatti.
There seems to be
no certainty as to the exact date of Scarlatti’s setting. But
it probably dates to the period he spent in Naples between 1708
and 1717. It was commissioned by a Neapolitan lay confraternity
called the Cavalieri della Vergine dei Dolori and was regularly
performed at the church of San Luigi di Palazzo. Within some
twenty years of Scarlatti’s work, the Cavalieri della Vergine
dei Dolori saw fit to replace it by Pergolesi’s setting, for
that too was (in all probability) commissioned by same confraternity.
The implication is not necessarily that Scarlatti’s setting
was judged to be bad or incompetent, merely that the shift of
sensibility of which Pergolesi is so apt a symbol made it seem
rather old-fashioned.
In fact, judged
from our own position in time, Scarlatti’s Stabat Mater
is actually rather fine – but certainly less obviously ‘exciting’
than the more famous setting which ‘succeeded’ it. It is a
good deal less theatrical, rather more committed to complex
polyphony, more learned in its respect for the musical tradition,
rather more conventionally ‘reverential’. And often very beautiful!
It is full of beautiful passages, as in the interplay of alto
voice and instrumental accompaniment in ‘Fac ut portem Christi
mortem’ or the melodic line for soprano in ‘Pia Mater’.
The juxtaposition
of these two Neapolitan settings of the Stabat Mater makes
for a fascinating, instructive and, above all, beautiful and moving
disc.
Glyn Pursglove
Gemma Bertagnoli
(soprano); Sara Mingardo (alto) 
