Bavarian Radio Choir / Julius Drake / Howard Arman DVORÁK Stabat Mater

STABAT MATER

 

Münchner Rundfunkorchester / Howard Arman ROSSINI Stabat Mater

“You tell me that you’ve been sold an item of some value,” Gioachino Rossini wrote angrily to the French music publisher Antoine Aulagnier in September 1841 after a third party had sold Aulagnier the autograph score of the original version of the Italian composer’s Stabat mater and Aulagnier had written to Rossini to ask for his permission to publish it. Rossini refused, arguing that he had “merely dedicated” the work “to the Reverend Father Manuel Fernández Varela, while reserving for myself the right to publish it whenever I consider it opportune. Without entering into the sort of swindle that someone has sought to perpetrate to the detriment of my interests, I declare to you, Monsieur, that if my Stabat mater is published without my authorization, whether in France or abroad, my firm intention is to pursue the publisher and hound him to death. What is more, Monsieur, I must tell you that in the copy I sent to the Reverend Father, there are only six numbers of my own composition, a friend of mine having been invited to complete what I could not nish myself because I was seriously ill.”

Warsaw Philharmonic / Jacek Kaspszyk SZYMANOWSKI

The new album by the Warsaw Philharmonic features music by eminent Polish composer Karol Szymanowski. His Litany to the Virgin Mary, Stabat Mater and Song of the Night were written between 1914 and 1933, which is considered to have been the most fruitful period in his creative life. 

Litany to the Virgin Mary to a poem by Jerzy Liebert (1904-1931) – a poet known for his love of lyrical verse on philosophical and religious subjects – is a piece which Szymanowski began to compose in 1930.  

Stabat Mater, completed in 1926, was officially commissioned from Szymanowski by the Polish art collector Bronisław Krystall to commemorate his wife’s death. The work was inspired, however, by a tragic event that affected Szymanowski’s family. Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater holds a special place in the history of Polish music after Chopin. It exerted a powerful impact even on eminent composers working fifty years later, wrote Marcin Gmys, PhD, professor of Adam Mickiewicz Institute.

The last work on this CD is Symphony No. 3 Song of the Night for solo voice, mixed choir and orchestra (1914-1916) – a whole new world of musical imagination, whose protagonist and speaker is an artist – at first unable to express his own feelings.

The performers are Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir under the baton of the Philharmonic’s artistic director, Jacek Kaspszyk, as well as outstanding soloists: Aleksandra Kurzak, Agnieszka Rehlis, Artur Ruciński, and Dmitry Korchak. (Warner Classics)