Stabat Mater: Motets to the virgin Mary (2006)

"A sensuous and exciting recital of Italian motets to the Virgin 'Beata Vergine'. Renaissance painters were obsessed with The Blessed Virgin Mary; but there must be many people who have stumbled from a church or a museum feeling that one Virgin and Child is much like another. Similarly, there are times when the prospect of listening to yet more settings of the Salve Regina, Ave Regina or Stabat Mater fails to lift the spirits. On the face of it, this recording could be expected to engender just such a depression. In fact, there is enough variety in the music to make the listening experience a pleasurable one. Philippe Jaroussky has the range of a soprano and sings with an even tone that is as pure in the upper register as in the lower. His coloratura is accurate and exciting, nowhere more so than in the Legrenzi piece, where he and Marie-Nicole Lemieux are beautifully matched. It is the operatic style that makes these pieces memorable, especially in the juxtaposition of recitative and aria." (Gramophone)