Pergolesi: Stabat Mater
Lucy Crowe (soprano) & Tim Mead (counter-tenor)
La Nuova Musica, David Bates
Awards:
-
Gramophone Magazine, June 2017, Editor's Choice
[Mead] offers articulate readings of the cantatas, his voice (with its faint echoes of the young Andreas Scholl) is beautifully controlled, its reedy, instrumental quality yielding lovely dialogues...
Pergolesi: Stabat Mater
Lucy Crowe (soprano) & Tim Mead (counter-tenor)
La Nuova Musica, David Bates
Purchase product
Awards:
-
Gramophone Magazine, June 2017, Editor's Choice
[Mead] offers articulate readings of the cantatas, his voice (with its faint echoes of the young Andreas Scholl) is beautifully controlled, its reedy, instrumental quality yielding lovely dialogues...
About
Two of Bach’s finest cantatas, both for solo alto, composed in Weimar (1714) and Leipzig (1726) respectively, are here coupled with the delicious agony of grief that is Pergolesi’s 'Stabat mater', an acknowledged masterpiece by one of the 18th century’s most influential composers. Bach so admired the composition of his Neapolitan colleague that he made his own ‘parody’ of it to a German text. On this recording, La Nuova Musica, in its 10th anniversary year, and its two eminent soloists display equal mastery of both idioms.
Counter-tenor Tim Mead is praised for his “alluring...consistently excellent” interpretations (The New York Times). With his “rich, mellifluous sound” (Guardian), he is recognised as one of the finest across the generations of counter-tenors. Described as having a voice of bell-like clarity with an impeccable vocal technique and powerful stage presence, Lucy Crowe has established herself as one of the leading lyric sopranos of her generation.
Lucy Crowe and Tim Mead reunite to perform the 'Stabat Mater' at St John's Smith Square on May 12th [Early Opera Company/Curnyn]
Contents and tracklist
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Awards and reviews
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Gramophone MagazineJune 2017Editor's Choice
August 2017
[Mead] offers articulate readings of the cantatas, his voice (with its faint echoes of the young Andreas Scholl) is beautifully controlled, its reedy, instrumental quality yielding lovely dialogues with the ensemble…[Crowe’s] warm and agile soprano suits the mellifluous Italian idiom. [Bates] has lined up a crack team of instrumentalists, with eloquent solo contributions by oboist Patrick Beaugiraud and organist Silas Wollston.
June 2017
In Lucy Crowe and Tim Mead the ensemble have both period specialists and singers with enough muscle and tone to temper stylistic precision with human drama. Together they lead a performance that is both meditation...and a vivid sacred drama...Bates and his ensemble take an active part in the drama too... A performance as sophisticated emotionally as it is musically.
22nd May 2017
Lucy Crowe and Tim Mead withstand comparison with the finest on disc. Their voices blend ideally in the duets, and their stylish phrasing in the arias is especially rewarding here...A superb disc of baroque vocal music.
30th March 2017
[La Nuova Musica] let phrases sigh and breathe and supply a decent amount of bass under properly expressive melodic lines...Crowe and Mead are both in sumptuous voice, and both fiery in the most dramatic moments of the Stabat Mater.
