Quaresima Italiana │ An Italian Lent

Stabat Mater à 10 (by Domenico Scarlatti)
Stabat Mater à 8 (by G.P. da Palestrina)
Messa di Requiem (by Ildebrando Pizzetti)
Crucifixus à 16 (by Antonio Caldara)
Ave Maria (by Giuseppe Verdi)

Click here for more information about the works on this program.

Featuring Italian music written from the 16th to the 20th centuries, the Seattle Choral Company’s “Italian Lent” takes the audience on a  journey through Italian musical history. Two settings of the Stabat Mater separated by two centuries, by the Renaissance master Palestrina and the Baroque innovator Domenico Scarlatti, provide two different perspective on the archetypical “Mother of Sorrows,” the Virgin Mary weeping at the foot of the cross. Caldara’s massive sixteen-voice Crucifixus, written for the Cathedral of San Marco in Venice, combines breathtaking contrapuntal mastery with a remarkably direct expression of deep grief. Ildebrando Pizzetti’s choral masterpiece, his Requiem Mass written in 1922, combines the flavor of medieval chant and Renaissance polyphony with distinctly modernist harmonies and emotional intensity. The concert closes with an exceptional musical gem from Giuseppe Verdi’s old age, his experimental, perplexing “Ave Maria” from his Four Sacred Pieces, in which the greatest master of Italian opera of all time stretches the language of tonal harmony to the breaking point.

Cantata Misericordium │ Cantata of Mercy

Cantata Misericordium (by Benjamin Britten)
Chorale on an Old French Carol (by Britten)
Hymn to Saint Cecilia (by Britten)
Dark Night of the Soul (by Ola Gjeilo)
Luminous Night of the Soul (by Ola Gjeilo)

The Seattle Choral Company joins musicians around the world in celebrating Benjamin Britten’s 100th birthday. His Cantata Misericordium, a major work commissioned in 1963 to mark the anniversary of the founding of the International Red Cross, enacts the biblical story of the Good Samaritan, ending with a powerful cry for compassion and mercy. It is paired with two works by the young Norwegian composer Ola Gjeilo, a rising star in the world of choral music. Dark Night of the Soul will be paired with its newly-composed companion piece, Luminous Night of the Soul, which will receive its regional premiere in this concert.