Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904)
Stabat Mater for soloists, choir and orchestra op. 58 (1877)
Michaela Kaune, Soprano
Martina Dike, Mezzo-soprano
Peter Sonn, Tenor
Tobias Schabel, Bass
Der Gemischte Chor Zürich
Joachim Krause, CONDUCTOR
Together with the Gemischter Chor Zürich conducted by Joachim Krause, the Basel Sinfonietta is once again taking an excursion into the musical world of the 19th century. With Antonín Dvořák's Stabat Mater, the programme at the Tonhalle Zurich includes a work whose premiere is very far in the past compared to the contemporary repertoire of the Basel Sinfonietta - it took place 142 years ago on 23 December 1880 in Prague - but whose dramaturgical development continues to express musically with great urgency the path from mourning to redemption to hope.
Antonín Dvořák's Stabat Mater for solos, choir and orchestra is probably the best known of the composer's sacred works. Dvorák's own painful experiences - in 1875 his first daughter died, and in 1877 he lost two more children in quick succession - may have been one of the reasons for his preoccupation with the suffering of the Mother of God, who stands weeping under the cross of her Son. The music responds with great sensitivity to the different moods of the liturgical text. Nine movements in slow to moderate tempo serve as a kind of Passion meditation before the ecstasy of a resurrection vision gains the upper hand at the end of the tenth movement.
Program subject to change
