Pergolesi: Stabat Mater

For his first ever performance at the Easter Festival, the great conductor René Jacobs has chosen from his repertoire of predilection, as he revisits Bach through Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater.

Struck down in the prime of his youth, only two months after writing this, his last masterpiece, the Italian composer left behind a work of such decorum and light that Bach, filled with admiration, chose to rework it in 1746.

Two short cantatas for a soloist and ensemble display the evergreen nature of 18th century sacred inspiration for a 21st-century audience.

At the head of the B'Rock Orchestra, the conductor will reveal the secret connection between two masters of baroque emotion.