Domenico Scarlatti & Jose De Nebra: Stabat Mater & [CD]

Two composers, two works devoted to Our Lady, and two ways of expressing sorrow and supplication through music. This recording brings together Domenico Scarlatti and Jose de Nebra around two of the great texts of Marian devotion. Scarlatti's Stabat Mater, one of the pinnacles of the sacred vocal repertoire, dazzles with it's imposing ten-voice writing and refined contrapuntal craft. Nebra's setting-composed within the milieu of the Real Capilla for a reduced ensemble-possesses remarkable expressive power and a pronounced theatrical accent. In his Salve Regina for solo soprano, strings, and continuo, Scarlatti explores a more intimate and virtuosic dimension in what is considered his final work. Nebra, by contrast, chooses an expressive restraint for the same text. La Grande Chapelle thus presents a compelling dialogue between two major figures of eighteenth-century music in the Iberian Peninsula, whose paths converged around the figure of Queen Maria Barbara of Braganza.