Czech Philharmonic & Jiri Belohlavek - Dvorák: Stabat Mater, Op.58, B.71 (2017) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

The year 1875 was something of an annus mirabilis for Dvořák: in just twelve months he composed his Fifth Symphony, the E major String Serenade, three important chamber works, four Moravian Duets and the five-act grand opera Vanda. It also marked both a peak in his fortunes – for the first time he received a state prize to help struggling young artists – and a year of deep personal sadness for the composer and his wife Anna, with the death on 19 September of their infant daughter Josefa.

The effect of this event on Dvořák may be sensed in the expressive G minor Piano Trio he wrote in January 1876, and shortly afterwards he may have decided to commemorate his loss with this setting of the Stabat Mater, his longest and most profound non-operatic work to date. He sketched it between 19 February and 7 May 1876, but left the orchestration until autumn of the following year, the interruption perhaps caused by continuing, devastating family tragedies: the death of another daughter, Růžena, followed a few weeks later by the loss of the Dvořák’s sole surviving child, their son Otakar. The orchestration was eventually completed on 13 November 1877, and the premiere took place at an anniversary concert of the Prague association of musical artists (Umělecká beseda) on 23 December 1880, a curiously unseasonable date for such a quintessentially Passiontide composition. …

TRACKLIST

Antonín Dvorák (1841 - 1904)

Stabat Mater, Op.58, B.71
01. "Stabat mater dolorosa"
02. "Quis est homo, qui non fleret"
03. "Eia mater, fons amoris"
04. "Fac ut ardeat cor meum"
05. "Tui nati vulnerati"
06. "Fac me vere tecum flere"
07. "Virgo virginum praeclara"
08. "Fac ut portem Christi mortem"
09. "Inflammatus et accensus"
10. "Quando corpus morietur"

PERSONNEL
Eri Nakamura, soprano
Elisabeth Kulman, contralto
Michael Spyres, tenor
Jongmin Park, bass
Prague Philharmonic Chorus
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra,
Jiří Bělohlávek, conductor