Music Web International: Recording of the Year.
This disc combines works which could have been used for an imagined vespers on the Catholic feast commemorating the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary – Our Lady of Sorrows. The place for this Vespers of Sorrow is the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice, the charitable institution with which Antonio Vivaldi was associated almost all of his active life.
The works chosen include a setting of Stabat Mater ('The grieving mother stood…') and Nisi Dominus, both for contralto and strings, as well as Magnificat in a version for soloists, choir and strings. Included is also the instrumental sonata 'Al Santo Sepolcro' ('At the Holy Sepulchre'), and concluding the Vespers is a plainchant Salve Regina ('Hail, O Queen…').
This unusual and highly moving programme is presented by the young Polish counter-tenor Jakub Burzynski, who with this disc makes his début on BIS. A dramatic and highly imaginative disc!
