Pergolesi's Stabat mater door Maarten Engeltjes, Julia Lezhneva en PRJCT Amsterdam

Pergolesi's Stabat Mater

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi completed his Stabat Mater in a monastery near Naples, where he sought a cure for his tuberculosis. It is tempting to attribute the success of this masterpiece to the myth that arose when Pergolesi, then only twenty-six years old, died a few months later. Because of his status as a genius who died young, numerous pieces supposedly written by him continued to surface for years—a prime example of commercialism in the Baroque era. You can certainly hear that the composer was terminally ill: what you hear here is not marble-like church music, but raw, direct emotion. Art that is less detached touches all the deeper; Pergolesi's Stabat Mater proves this time and again.

Maarten Engeltjes and PRJCT Amsterdam

Back in the Main Hall: Maarten Engeltjes and his baroque orchestra PRJCT Amsterdam, which consists of a core group of outstanding young baroque musicians with a shared musical vision. Their very first successful project at the Concertgebouw was Tranen van een moeder ( Tears of a Mother), featuring Pergolesi's Stabat Mater . Now they return with this magnificent piece. Gramophone previously wrote of their performance: 'Moving and poignant, it is clear that these artists have something personal to say about the Stabat Mater .'