Accademia Bizantina / Dantone / Jerosme - NOSPR

Accademia Bizantina, an ensemble from Ravenna, has appeared at NOSPR only once before, in 2019. On that occasion, the ensemble offered a veritable masterclass in the performance of Antonio Vivaldi’s concertos. This time, their programme will present a fascinating study of Marian music by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi.

Pergolesi lived in fragile health. An illustration from 1736, published alongside the announcement of his death, depicts a deformation of the left leg and strikingly contorted facial features. These have been interpreted as signs of tuberculosis, the illness that ultimately claimed the composer’s life at the age of only twenty-six.

It continues to astonish both listeners and musicologists that one so young could create music of such emotional and artistic maturity. The balance of compositional means and the precise use of minimalist gestures are usually the domain of seasoned masters. Yet masterpieces do not emerge in a vacuum. The repertoire chosen by Accademia Bizantina offers an opportunity to look more closely into Pergolesi’s musical world and to approach the context of his greatest work. In the two arrangements of the Marian antiphon Salve Regina performed by the Italian ensemble, we already encounter numerous motifs and solutions that would later find their consummate expression in Stabat Mater. The extra-musical themes of these reflections are also intriguing. Little is known about Pergolesi’s family, but records suggest that none of his siblings survived to adulthood: two brothers and a sister died in childhood. Giovanni, as the youngest, could not have witnessed these events, but the image of a mother stricken by grief at the loss of her children was certainly not foreign to him.

Szymon Maliszewski 

Concert duration (intermission included): approximately 110 minutes