Stradella: A cor supplicante (L'anime del Purgatorio) - Kirkby

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• Stradella: A cor suppl...
"A cor supplicante"
from the cantata a 5 "Per l'anime del Purgatorio"
Text: Pompeo Figari
Music: Alessandro Stradella (1680)
In this video:
Emma Kirkby, soprano - Angelo
The Consort of Musicke,
conducted by Anthony Rooley
Musicians:
Susan Carpenter-Jacobs, violin
Cathy Weiss, violin
Alison Crum, bass viol
Alan Wilson, organ & harpsichord
Jakob Lindberg, lute
Anthony Rooley, lute
Recorded in Forde Abbey, May 1984
"By his deeds shall you know Alessandro Stradella, and many of them were not very nice. Stradella's life, its 37 years stretched over the dead center of the 17th century, was short and fast. Aside from his swindles, philanderings and ultimate murder, the facts about it are few. The music, however, survives in plenty: vocal and instrumental pieces that crossed between the religious and the secular and left their mark on the late Baroque.
'L'Anime del Purgatorio' (...) was designated a 'cantata morale', which in light of its composer's character, brings to mind another maxim: 'Do as I say, not as I do.' In Pompeo Figari's sweetly simple-minded libretto, a descending angel requires about an hour and a quarter of music to rescue the souls in purgatory from the clutches of Lucifer. The solo writing is highly florid and the choral sections gracefully contrapuntal and exquisitely harmonized."
- Bernard Holland
A cor supplicante,
pietoso il Tonante
resister non sa.

Con flebili stille,
pupille dolenti
son troppo possenti
a mover pietà.