Two versions of this medieval sequence take place in the Chamber Hall on the 21st of April at 7:30 p.m.

 

The Auditorio de Tenerife is a cultural venue linked to the Department of Culture of Tenerife Island's Council that is managed by its island's Minister of Culture, Enrique Arriaga. Next week the venue has programmed the concert De Umbrarum (From the shadows) to pay tribute to Stabat Mater. The chamber ensemble El Afecto Ilustrado, the countertenor Carlos Mena and the soprano Jone Martínez, both from the Basque country, feature this Thursday, the 21st of April at 7:30 p.m. in the auditorium’s Chamber Hall.

This program is formed by two works that are intimately linked to one another. They deal with the sorrow associated with the Virgin Mary at the Passion and Death of her son, following the pattern of the very famous medieval sequence of the Stabat Mater Dolorosa. The works are Stabat Mater by Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725) and the one by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-1736). These two works follow one another immediately on a timeline and were commissioned by the same body, the Confraternità dei Cavalieri di San Luigi di Palazzo.

This historical fact turns the programme into a special gathering of both works in the form of an altarpiece, which is an opportunity to address two spiritual meditations on a single theme, with the same aim, and with rhetorical devices that are similar but not the same. These works are composed by two different characters creating a musical discourse on one of the Marian passages that have given rise to the most artistic activity over time.

The Stabat Mater genre led to the ardent artistic imagination of the Baroque period, not only in music but also in almost all artistic disciplines. Scarlatti (1660-1725) composed his famous work in 1724, a year before his death, for the Friday of Sorrows celebrations in Naples. The Sicilian author proposes eighteen movements with impeccable rhetoric. We are dealing with a piece devised for two singers, two violins and basso continuo, with simple lines, but enormous expressive power.

Pergolesi (1710-1736) composed his famous Stabat Mater a few months before his death, as a commission from the same Neapolitan brotherhood to replace that of Scarlatti, which was considered too outdated for the masses devoted to Our Lady of Sorrows. The work immediately became so famous that a large number of creators such as Johann Sebastian Bach produced adaptations or used its themes as parts or bases for new compositions.

Figures such as Jean Jacques Rousseau offered glowing praise for its famous beginning, and it soon became the great musical success of its time, despite the short life of its creator. By adding a viola part to the ensemble presented by Scarlatti, the Stabat Mater by Pergolesi attains exquisite expressiveness and drama, which are a true paradigm of the rhetorical mechanism of the era. Structured around only 12 movements, the level of lyricism is truly spectacular.

El Afecto Ilustrado was created in 2012, devised as an innovative and versatile chamber group, with the philosophy of presenting and bringing the public closer to a historically informed performance of the repertoire encompassing the early Baroque and the earliest Romantic era, in a close and tangible way. The ensemble members are Adrián Linares, concertmaster and direction; Vadym Makarenko, baroque violin; Víctor Gil, baroque viola; Diego Armando Pérez, baroque violoncello; Ventura Rico, violone; Carlos Oramas, theorbo, and Raquel García, organ.

The tickets can be purchased on the website www.auditoriodetenerife.com, at the Auditorium's box office located in the building’s hall from Monday to Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m and by dialling the phone number 902 317 327 during the same schedules. There are special discounts for the audience under 30 years of age, students, unemployed and large families.