Harry Christophers and The Sixteen embark on their third new commissions project with the Genesis Foundation, this time featuring works inspired by the Stabat Mater text.
Spirit Strength and Sorrow is the fascinating result of The Sixteen’s third major collaboration with the Genesis Foundation and features three new works by contemporary composers, all settings of the Stabat Mater text: Alissa Firsova, Tonu Korvits and Matthew Martin.
The Stabat Mater is, in conductor Harry Christophers’ view, without doubt the most powerful poem of the liturgy and one which has inspired composers through the ages.
The three young composers featured on this disc represent different backgrounds and cultures: Alissa Firsova, with her intricate harmonic language drawing on her roots in Russian Orthodoxy; Tonu Korvits, inspired by the scales and intonations from the folklore of a south-eastern region of his homeland Estonia; and Matthew Martin, whose detailed composition harks back to previous traditions surrounding Stabat Mater.
Harry writes: ’I have also included the simple yet meltingly beautiful plainsong tune which so often served as the basis for Renaissance and Baroque composers, as portrayed in Claudio Casciolini’s setting. And the whole is polished off with Domenico Scarlatti’s extraordinary and amazingly virtuosic work for ten voices and continuo.
The Sixteen and the Genesis Foundation last collaborated on the O Guiding Night recording (COR16090), which featured commissions by Tarik O’Regan, Ruth Byrchmore and Roderick Williams.
