Pergolesi - Stabat Mater. 2014, Château de Fontainebleau.
Nathalie Stutzmann, Emöke Barath, Philippe Jaroussky.
Coming from the world of rock n' roll, observing and orientating oneself in this whole new world of highly trained/hyper-professional, academic world of art music, beyond basic gymnasium choir and theory schooling, is both intoxicating and intimidating. Intoxicating because it is a world of total freedom. The horizon you had is basically fractalized, splintered into endless possibilities. Intimidating because you're just not equipped to separate the grain from the wheat, beyond the immediate phenomenological and direct experiences of the music, so to speak.
But those experiences are all you have to go by. I've decided to trust them. I'm sure there are ''better'' recordings of Pergolesi's Stabat Mater out there. Deutche Grammophon 2011 with Anna Netrebko and Marianna Pizzolato is supposed to be one of them. Those soparonos seem way more mature and developed than Barath, to my untrained ears. But that otherworldly, melancholic, beauty of sacral baroque, the interplay between the voices...this performance just blows me away. My first time actually listening to a countertenor, and it is just exquisite beauty.