However, her phrasings were always stylish and her projection grew in security as the piece proceeded. Singing almost constantly with her head in the score, mezzo-soprano Anna Bonitatibus sometimes sounded uncomfortable with the music’s low tessitura. The afternoon’s soloists, too, were well-matched, especially soprano Silvia Frigato and tenor Ben Bliss, both of whose contributions were clarion and agile. Authoritatively as they executed the final chorus, the choir’s finest moments came earlier in “Pro peccatis suae gentis”: its grippingly focused second half was sung with haunting intensity. The H&H Chorus delivered their parts with thrilling blend, clean enunciations of text, and an admirable attention to dynamic shape. Sunday’s rendition of this intriguing piece thrived on the score’s play of colors and textures. ![]() Most intriguing is the final chorus, which opens with an unsettled meditative section that suddenly cedes to a vigorous but edgily chromatic fugue with a text anticipating “the glory of paradise.” Later, a mournful duet between soprano and mezzo-soprano (“Quis est homo”) unfolds imitatively above a stately and sharply articulated solo cello ostinato. In the opening “Stabat Mater dolorosa,” for instance, a flowing instrumental depiction of weeping gives way to a plaintive, though richly blended, declamation of the text. This means the music is engagingly varied. Otherwise, Bononcini’s setting of this 13 th-century poem aims to distill its expressive essence. Completed around 1710, the thirteen movements of the Stabat Mater unfold with impressive direction: only the central aria, “Eia Mater,” involves extended sequences of melismas that might be considered more decorative than dramatically imperative. There is greater musical drama to be had on those days, as the afternoon’s pairing of Antonio Bononcini’s Stabat Mater and Johann Sebastian Bach’s Easter Oratorio with guest conductor Rinaldo Alessandrini at Symphony Hall reminded us.īoth pieces are, for the most part, admirably concise, especially Bononcini’s effort. ![]() One could hardly blame the Handel and Haydn Society for having, on Palm Sunday, skipped ahead to Good Friday and Easter. ![]() Rinaldo Alessandrini conducted the Handel and Haydn Sunday at Symphony Hall.
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