Album

Several recent recordings have taken up Domenico Scarlatti's choral music, which is as conservative as his keyboard sonatas are radical. This is not just the result of the placement early in Scarlatti's career of the music heard here; the Te Deum, indeed, was written after Scarlatti arrived in Lisbon, and the other pieces are hard to date with any certainty. The Missa Breve "La stella" and Stabat Mater retain many features of the sacred music of the seventeenth century, with frequent exploitations of block contrasts and short sections that shift in tempo and meter. Much of the music is contrapuntal, and operatic influences are sparse. Consider the Stabat Mater, an unusual piece that deserves to be better known. It is a genuine 10-voice work—the ensemble is possibly divisible, as annotator Keith Anderson claims, into two five-voice choirs, but really it's a flexible group of 10 that exploits a constantly changing set of texture contrasts. These works are gorgeous examples of polyphony in the old style, enriched by the developing harmonic language of the late Baroque. The Missa Breva "La Stella" achieves a strikingly distinctive response to the mass text with its combination of short sections and flexible language. Sample the "Incarnatus" (track 10), with its arcane harmonic language of ultimate mystery, and the explosion of joy at the subsequent Resurrexit, intensified by the buzzing continuo group of violine, theorbo, and organ. The Immortal Bach Ensemble (which will at least be around to collect the reissue royalties) is a 10-voice group, which means there is one voice per part to the Stabat Mater—a strong choice in this work, for it clarifies the complex textures. The group penetrates the expressive fervor beneath the music's conventional surfaces, and it is on solid ground in the a cappella readings of the Magnificat and the elevation motet Cibavit nos Dominus, which is interpolated between the Sanctus and Agnus Dei of the mass—which are in an even older style, although the a cappella status of the Magnificat is a matter of debate. In all, this album is an excellent choice for anyone who has ever been curious about this aspect of Domenico Scarlatti's career.

© James Manheim, Rovi

CD 1
Domenico Scarlatti Composer Te Deum, motet for double chorus and organ in C Work 5:48 Immortal Bach Ensemble Chorus/Choir, Morten Schuldt-Jensen Conductor
1	1.Te Deum laudamus	2:48			$0.99
2	2.Te ergo quaesumus	3:00			$0.99
Domenico Scarlatti Composer Missa, for chorus and organ in A- ('La stella') Work 17:32 Immortal Bach Ensemble Chorus/Choir, Morten Schuldt-Jensen Conductor
3	1a.Kyrie: Kyrie eleison	0:58			$0.99
4	1b.Kyrie: Christe eleison	1:11			$0.99
5	1c.Kyrie: Kyrie eleison	1:16			$0.99
6	2a.Gloria: Gloria in excelsis Deo. Et in terra pax	1:38			$0.99
7	2b.Gloria: Gratias agimus tibi	2:11			$0.99
8	2c.Gloria: Quoniam tu solus	0:33			$0.99
9	2d.Gloria: Cum Sancto Spiritu	1:05			$0.99
10	3a.Credo: Credo in unum Deum: patrem omnipotentem	1:47			$0.99
11	3b.Credo: Et incarnatus est	2:04			$0.99
12	3c.Credo: Et resurrexit	2:31			$0.99
13	3d.Credo: Et vitam venturi	0:58			$0.99
14	3e.Credo: Sanctus	1:20			$0.99
Domenico Scarlatti Composer Cibavit nos Dominus, for chorus Work Immortal Bach Ensemble Chorus/Choir, Morten Schuldt-Jensen Conductor
15	Cibavit nos Dominus, for chorus	3:24			$0.99
Domenico Scarlatti Composer Missa, for chorus and organ in A- ('La stella') Work Immortal Bach Ensemble Chorus/Choir, Morten Schuldt-Jensen Conductor
16	6.Agnus Dei	3:20			$0.99
Domenico Scarlatti Composer Magnificat in D-, for chorus Work 12:22 Immortal Bach Ensemble Chorus/Choir, Morten Schuldt-Jensen Conductor
17	1.Magnificat	4:42			$0.99
18	2a.Fecit potentiam	1:41			$0.99
19	2b.Esurientes	3:36			$0.99
20	3.Gloria Patri	2:23			$0.99
Domenico Scarlatti Composer Stabat Mater, for two choirs, organ, and continuo Work 21:36 Immortal Bach Ensemble Chorus/Choir, Morten Schuldt-Jensen Conductor
21	1.Stabat Mater	2:33			$0.99
22	2.Cujus animam gementem	3:40			$0.99
23	3.Quis non posset	2:20			$0.99
24	4.Eja Mater, fons amoris	1:38			$0.99
25	5.Sancta Mater, istud agas	1:37			$0.99
26	6.Fac me vere tecum flere	0:54			$0.99
27	7.Juxta crucem	1:37			$0.99
28	8.Inflammatus	3:20			$0.99
29	9.Fac ut animae	2:16			$0.99
30	10.Amen	1:41			$0.99