Sammartini / Symphonica Ensemble / Ferrari Sacred Cantatas CD

The cantata Della Passione di Ges? Cristo, J-C 124 (On Jesus Christ's Passion), was first performed in San Fedele on 9 March 1759, the first Friday of Lent. This title, which was published in the catalogue of Sammartini's works (Harvard University Press, 1976), does not correspond to the text found in Father Keller's manuscript. The text belongs instead to the cantata Gerusalemme sconoscente, ingrata (Jerusalem, ungrateful and disowning), which bears the number J-C 122. In the catalogue, this number belongs to the text of the cantata La perfidia giudaica (The Jewish Wickedness), which is considered lost and is catalogued as number C-49. According to the current state of research the 1760 cantata Della Passione di Ges? Cristo, Signor nostro seems to be lost. The real title of the cantata, Gerusalemme sconoscente, ingrata (Jerusalem, ungrateful and disowning), clearly shows the anti-Semitism of it's text. All too often religious texts, particularly those concerning Christ's Passion, would unfortunately express anti-Semitic feelings. In this cantata three citizens of Jerusalem, the Apostles Peter and John and Mary Magdalene, themselves certainly Jews, paradoxically express their deep disappointment that the miracles of Jesus and Mary Magdalene's honoring of the Savior should have been misunderstood by the Jews and thus contributed to his death. The cantata L'addolorata Divina Madre e Desolatissima nella Soledad, J-C 123 (The Sorrowing Divine Mother and Most Afflicted in Her Solitude), was first performed on the fifth Friday of Lent in 1759. Three pious women Mary Magdalene, Mary Cleophas and Mary Salome comment upon the Holy Virgin's destiny, each singing a recitative and an aria. Mary Magdalene emphasizes that Mary's pain at the death of her son is made more intense by the thought that he was condemned as if guilty of a crime; Mary Cleophas points to the silent presence of the Holy Mother throughout the whole of her son's life, recalling Simeon's prediction that "... a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also" (Luke, 2,35), this the image of the grieving Mother, the Mater Dolorosa; whilst, in the most heroic aria of the cantata (Non cos? d'Alpe in cima) (Not even an ancient oak on an Alpine peak), Mary Salome considers the suffering Mother's inner strength, so firm and immovable that not even an age old oak on a snowbound Alpine peak or a storm-lashed rock in a sea of shipwrecks could match it. Apparently Father Keller did not possess the original text, since we find in his score the melody of the aria with a Latin text: "Ecce panis angelorum". In this recording we have the aria complete with both it's music and it's Italian text, in the reconstruction by Daniele Ferrari from the original libretto. In the finale the three holy women move forward to a more positive attitude in spite of their sorrow: the text is a paraphrase of the Latin sequence Stabat mater dolorosa (The Mother Stood Sorrowing), whose author is probably Jacopone da Todi. Mary Magdalene's "Non bast? l'immenso affanno" (More than the immense pain) can be found in Father Keller's sources in the form of a contrafactum with the Latin text Confitebor taken from the Mass (it was common at the time to take already existing music and arrange it for different purposes).

1. Introduction 2. Recitative I: Oh Wonders, Oh Amazement! 3. Aria: If a Divine Soul Conceals Himself 4. Recitative II: All of This I Know Well 5. Aria: I Know That in It's Heart 6. Recitative III: If You Want Further Proof 7. Aria: He Who Has An Evil Mind 8. Recitative IV: Who Could Imagine 9. Finale: He Whose Heart Is Full of Love 10. Introduction 11. Recitative I: However Much Compassion for Others' Misfortunes 12. Arie: More Than the Immense Pain 13. Recitative II: Oh, After the Long Years of Toil 14. Aria: How True Was the Prediction 15. Recitative III: And Yet, Whose Spirit Would Have Been So Strong 16. Aria: Not Even An Ancient Oak or An Alpine Peak 17. Recitative IV: Let Us Now Delay No More 18. Finale: Purest of Mothers, Fount of Love