Search - Vivaldi, Mingardo, Alessandrini :: Stabat Mater Sacred Music Vol 1

The surprising thing about this disc of sacred music by Vivaldi is how very worldly a lot of that music sounds. The lilting solo cantatas and brief, sparkling concerti for a veritable cornucopia of instruments--the specimens offered here include one for violin, cello, and solo organ and another for pairs of recorders, oboes, and early clarinets--may seem frivolous to those who equate 18th-century church music with the profundity of Bach. It's worth remembering, however, that spirituality in Catholic Venice at that time was often more lighthearted and even sensual than in Lutheran Leipzig. Another fact to keep in mind is that Vivaldi wrote most of his sacred music (instrumental as well as vocal) for the famous all-female choir and orchestra of the girls' orphanage and school where he was musical director. These days, Vivaldi's Stabat Mater setting is usually considered the province of countertenors such as Andreas Scholl and Robin Blaze. Contralto Sara Mingardo may not blow these esteemed gentlemen out of the water, but she gives a performance worthy to stand besides theirs--and in this case, the performance is on, as it were, a modern copy of an "original instrument." At first hearing, a listener might miss one of Rinaldo Alessandrini's trademarks: the extreme tempos that seem ridiculous at first and end up sounding just right--startlingly fast at the beginning of Vivaldi's Gloria, for example, or daringly slow at the start of Pergolesi's Stabat Mater. None of his tempos on this disc startle; they simply seem just right. Has Alessandrini mellowed--or have he and his fellow Italians changed the way we hear Vivaldi? --Matthew Westphal