Pergolesi: Stabat Mater (Emma Kirkby, James Bowman)

Disclaimer: I do not own this! The Stabat Mater, centuries old, is a Latin poem often set to music. It is Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater (1736), for soprano, alto, and orchestra, which is his best known sacred work. It was commissioned by the Confraternità dei Cavalieri di San Luigi di Palazzo (the monks of the brotherhood of San Luigi di Palazzo) as a replacement for the rather old-fashioned one by Alessandro Scarlatti for identical forces which had been performed each Good Friday in Naples. Whilst classical