Completed in a Franciscan monastery in the spa town of Pozzuoli, near Naples as his last work before a premature death, barely two months after his 26th birthday, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater in C minor has transcended time and is now widely acclaimed as one of the finest musical works of the Italian Baroque. Few composers of the time can compare to Pergolesi, whose career also coincided with the most fruitful period of Neapolitan musical history, and Stabat Mater is definitely his best-known sacred work.

​

In his masterpiece, Pergolesi uses the 13th century poem Stabat mater dolorosa, which depicts Mary’s sorrow as she mourns Jesus after the crucifixion, and creates an amazing variety of sounds and moods from this very formal text, using quite restrained forces (two solo voices, strings, and, in this edition, a continuo group of organ and theorbo). The sentimental and highly ornamented melodic lines of Stabat Mater have inspired many composers to imitate, paraphrase and adapt and made it for over two centuries an essential listening.

​

Besides Stabat Mater, in this sombre programme, Gabriel Bebeșelea and Musica Ricercata present other two poignant examples of funeral works in Vivaldi’s Sinfonia Al Santo Sepolcro and Locatelli’s Sinfonia funebre.

​

Composed for two pianos when Mozart was 26 years of age - the same age Pergolesi completed his Stabat Mater - the C-minor Fugue was re-arranged for strings, with an introductory Adagio in June 1788, and is an exquisite example of Mozart’s mature compositional excellence. This highly dramatic and rarely heard Mozart composition is characterised by Mozart’s melodic charm. and serves as an overture to Musica Ricercata’s melancholic pro- gramme.