(D.) Scarlatti: Stabat Mater
Dvorák/Bestion: Stabat Mater op. 58 (arr. for soloists, choir, piano and orchestra)
La Tempête cond. Simon-Pierre Bestion
Alpha 1054 • 94' • (2 cds)
Recording: July 2022, Auditorium de l'Orchestre national d'Île-de-France, Alfortville
Artistic impulses and artistic logic do not always exist in harmony with each other, sometimes resulting in dissonance. This is certainly true for this double album, in which the Stabat Mater by Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) and that by Antonín Dvorák have been brought together in a remarkable way by conductor Simon-Pierre Bestion. Remarkable because curious artistic devices have been employed (more on that later) as part of what may be called a 'reincarnation project', as becomes clear from the interview with conductor Simon-Pierre Bestion printed in the cd booklet (the translation is mine):
'A few years ago, it was one of those coincidences life has in store for us, someone lent me a book about the reincarnation of famous figures from the past. I read it more as pleasant distraction than as a scientific and historical handbook, but it did affect me quite considerably. So much so that from it arose the idea for a project for La Tempête. At that time I was working on Domenico Scarlatti's Stabat Mater, in my view one of the most beautiful choral works from the Baroque period. Moreover, I had long wanted to perform Dvorák's Stabat Mater; as an adolescent I sang in the choir under Valérie Fayet, from which I retained warm and deep feelings.'
'This story about the transmigration of souls into new bodies when their old bodies have died, based on shared personal, philosophical and artistic antecedents, or where even biographies resonate with each other, provoked a reaction in me. Why not combine these two works, with as underlying idea the possible reincarnation of Scarlatti's Stabat Mater in Dvorák, and the possible rebirth of Domenico in the physical form of Antonín? I was able to trace a very subtle connection between the two works - a connection that is rather aesthetic and metaphysical than scientific, but that proves they form one whole. There followed a lengthy process of interweaving the two pieces, in which I gained both a good understanding of their individual qualities and what they have in common with each other, particularly the keys which are actually identical if you realize that Baroque A was at 415 Hz, so both works sound as if they are in the same key.'
With this, Bestion's arguments are not yet exhausted, as the following shows:
'Both composers set this medieval poem in ten parts, although each made a different selection of the verses. In doing so, they unfold their great mastery over the different styles that reflect the richness and completeness of their music. Thus there is a trace of Renaissance polyphony to be heard in Scarlatti (in the homophonic style of 'Quis non posset' and the contrapuntal texture of 'Fac me vere tecum flere'), while in Dvorák's Stabat Mater the 'Inflammatus' seems almost inspired by Handel, and the melancholic melos of the 'Eja mater, fons amoris' even sounds quasi-Schubertian. Imagine composing a work from the same substance, the same spirit, the same energy, but separated by more than 150 years! Of course, the compositional means, the development of ideas and the sources of inspiration are necessarily different and characteristic of their time. And yet I feel in these two works the same language of tones, the same expression of sorrow, the imagery of what moves the soul. It would have made no sense whatsoever, for example, to perform this programme together with Pergolesi's Stabat Mater. The question I constantly asked myself was: What connects these two composers? The connection between Scarlatti and Dvorák became clear when I explored it at the piano. I mentioned earlier the shared key that connects the two works, particularly at the beginning. Actually, the first two parts of both Scarlatti and Dvorák seem to completely mirror each other in their vocal expression of suffering as described in the opening verses of the poem. And also in the final part of both pieces there is a similar mutual mirroring, where an almost all-encompassing sense of joy takes over, building to a climax towards the end, with the vocal melismata, the melodic spirals, the accents and counter-accents.'
Those who approach it without prejudice hear beautiful music. Those who place it in its historical context but especially know it hear a monstrosity.
Then the further artistic devices that Bestion has employed with a view to his 'ideal reincarnation', starting with the instrumental scoring.
Strings were added to Scarlatti's Stabat Mater (not prescribed by the composer), with the important effect of strengthening the vocal lines (the well-known colla parte, incidentally not unusual in that period because it has a favourable influence on the timbres). In Dvorák's Stabat Mater, however, the direction is reversed, opting for a considerably streamlined instrumental scoring. And what certainly does not belong within the given orchestration is the piano part inserted by Bestion (conceived by the composer in the first version of the work, when still without orchestra). Bestion motivates this as follows:
'It seemed to me the perfect echo of Scarlatti's Stabat Mater, as he had composed it for continuo instruments: in one case the vocal line accompanied by the piano, in the other by organ and theorbo. After Dvořák had completed the first version of the work, he orchestrated it as a man of his time for full symphony orchestra. For this recording, I therefore decided to expand Scarlatti's orchestration and to scale down that of Dvořák, so that they could meet on equal ground.'
That 'scaling down' in this case amounts to 'detracting from' apparently Bestion was unwilling to acknowledge or attached no artistic significance to it.
How Scarlatti's Stabat Mater should be sung we do not know. It does not emerge from the surviving source material and there are no contemporary reports about it. This raises the obvious question: ripieno style or not? Bestion – and he is certainly not alone – chose for a soloists' ensemble in dialogue with the choir, in favour of contrasts and variation in texture. There is little to object to that.
It is different as regards the cuts made by Bestion in Dvořák's Stabat Mater, stemming from his idea that this would serve the formal aspect and intensity of the programme:
'I have omitted only two parts from Dvořák's Stabat Mater on grounds of coherence and intensity within the programme. In fact, we follow here a kind of journey that leads from nothing to everything, from greatest introspection to extroverted expression, beginning with the rather minimalist theorbo solo that I wrote as a supplement to Scarlatti's work, and ending with that crushing tutti in Dvořák's, with which the (double) album is concluded. All parts follow the order of the Latin text, but because the two composers did not select the same verses, we avoided repetition - although we also did not follow every verse from one number to the next. That is not a fundamental problem, since we are not dealing here with a liturgical ritual according to a fixed framework: we are rather on an imaginary path, where the sensual is central, with detours and paths that are often repeated as we explore the suggestive images of this Medieval tableau. Also, with the aim of uniting the two works even further, I placed Gregorian chant in the middle of the programme, because it expresses the entire Medieval imagination. We could even call it a generative melody, because it has produced all later Stabat Mater settings, a melody that has somehow passed through the imagination of Scarlatti and subsequently Dvořák.'
'Only two parts,' according to Bestion. They are not mentioned anywhere in the booklet: 'Fac me vere tecum flere' (approx. 6'30) and 'Virgo virginum praeclara' (approx. 5'30).
On this double album, as Bestion has already indicated, it takes place continuously (in fact consistently): the two Stabat Maters do not stand as a corpus on their own, but their individual parts are alternated with each other, as shown in the programme overview below:
CD1
Prologue – d'après Scarlatti 1'29
2 Stabat Mater dolorosa (Scarlatti)
3 Stabat Mater dolorosa (Dvořák)
4 Cujus animam gementem (Scarlatti)
5 Quis non posset (Scarlatti)
6 Eja mater, fons amoris (Scarlatti)
7 Quis est homo, qui non fleret (Dvořák)
8 Eja mater, fons amoris (Dvořák)
9 Fac, ut ardeat cor meum (Dvořák)
CD2
1 Sancta mater, istud agas (Scarlatti)
2 Tui nati vulnerati (Dvořák)
3 Fac me vere tecum flere (Scarlatti)
4 Sabat Mater dolorosa – Séquence grégorienne issue du Graduale Triplex (Solesmes, 1979), arranged by Simon-Pierre Bestion
5 Fac, ut portem Christi mortem (Dvořák)
6 Inflammatus et accensus (Dvořák)
7 Juxta crucem (Scarlatti)
8 Inflammatus (Scarlatti)
9 Fac ut animae (Scarlatti)
10 Amen (Scarlatti)
11 Finale : Quando corpus morietur (Dvořák)
And with that we have not yet reached the end of the criticisms that can be raised. Bestion and his La Tempête are rooted in historical performance practice, a practice that touches Scarlatti to the heart but not Dvořák.
In Bestion's 'reincarnation model' the achievements of that historical performance practice absolutely do not fit with nineteenth-century Romanticism (Dvořák composed his Stabat Mater around 1876 - the reason for it is well known). Whoever hears the work under the baton of Mariss Jansons, Jirí Belohlávek, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Neeme Järvi or - perhaps the best performance of all - Rafael Kubelik, finds himself in a completely different world, and above all a world that does much more justice to Dvořák's deeply felt masterpiece. This even applies to the performances under Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Philippe Herreweghe respectively, two conductors who have made themselves extremely worthy of merit in the field of historical performance practice since the sixties: they generally know how to strike the right chord, although neither has my preference.
What remains for me is the final question: what is really the use of Bestion's 'reincarnation model' for us, listeners? I really could not say. It might have been different if the two Stabat Maters had appeared separately from each other on this double album, although the most essential objections would not have melted like snow in the sun.
I already mentioned it: this double album is a monstrosity, all good intentions notwithstanding. Nothing more, nothing less.