Chopin, Schumann and Mahler will probably dominate the anniversary celebrations this year but one imagines that a few discs celebrating Pergolesi’s 300th birthday will creep out of the woodwork. Claudio Abbado and the Bolognese Orchestra Mozart issued their disc of the famous Stabat mater recently (12/09), but the second part of their DG triptych devoted to Pergolesi’s sacred music offers more fascinating fare. It presents a fine Missa brevis that seems to have been composed for the feast of St Emidius, protector against earthquakes and patron saint of Naples, on December 31, 1732. It contains ample evidence of Pergolesi’s mastery of late-Baroque double-choir techniques and the new galant style of writing for virtuoso solo voices. There are some striking features, such as an astonishing second “Kyrie” that has some extraordinary harmonic twists packed into its brief duration, and magnificent double-choir passages in the first part of “Qui tollis” that bring to mind Mozart’s counterpart in the Mass in C minor (written half a century later).

Diego Fasolis’s Swiss-Italian choir is on good form, settling down after the unbridled opening of the “Gloria in excelsis Deo” threatens to become undisciplined. Soloists Sara Mingardo and Veronica Cangemi combine to good effect in the duet “Domine Deus”: the latter gives a vivid account of a soliloquy from the oratorio La conversione e morte di San Guglielmo duca d’Aquitania (1731); the former gives an emotive, some might say exaggerated, performance of the F minor version of the Salve regina composed near the end of Pergolesi’s life (the soprano version in C minor was included on the previous release; it was wise for DG to keep them separate). A spectacular Laudate pueri featuring Rachel Harnisch’s fluent coloratura, incisive choral singing and colourful orchestration concludes the disc brightly. Those who found Abbado’s Stabat mater to be nondescript will be delighted to discover a surer sense of purpose and stylistic articulation in this rewarding collection.