Stabat Mater

Stabat Mater

A monumental work of great beauty and a condemnation of all wars, in the past as well as today.
It is the ‘War Requiem’ by Benjamin Britten, composer and avowed pacifist, who composed it in 1962 for the solemn inauguration of the new Coventry Cathedral, rebuilt after the devastation of World War II bombings.

The structure of the ‘War Requiem’ interweaves the traditional Latin text of the Requiem Mass with the poignant poems of Wilfred Owen, the English soldier and poet who wrote from the front about the horrors of the trenches and the senselessness of war, who died in 1918 just days before the end of the First World War.
His powerful poems bear witness to the brutality of war and the author’s deep humanity. Through the use of two languages and two distinct texts – and the reference to two different wars – Britten amplifies the universal message of the ‘War Requiem’, emphasising the horror of the Second World War and recalling the tragedy of the First World War. A masterpiece that, with its message of condemnation and hope for reconciliation, continues to resonate powerfully today.

Gaetano Donizetti
“Com’è bello” from Lucrezia Borgia
“L’amor suo mi fé beata” from Roberto Devereux

Gioachino Rossini
Une caresse à ma femme, from volume VI
Album pour les enfants dégourdis pour piano, dei Péchés de vieillesse

Felix Mendelssohn
Romanza senza parole op. 67 n. 2 for piano

Franz Liszt
Oh! quand je dors S. 282

Charles Gounod
Au printemps

Charles Gounod
“Ah! je ris de me voir si belle en ce miroir” (Air des bijoux) from Faust

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Giuseppe Verdi
“Non so le tetre immagini” from Il corsaro
 “Sempre all’alba” from Giovanna d’Arco

Giuseppe Martucci
Notturno op. 70 n. 1 for pianoforte

Vincenzo Bellini
“Col sorriso d’innocenza” from Il pirata

Hell I for cello and orchestra

Concerto No. 1 in C major Hob.VIIb:1 for cello and orchestra

from Canti rocciosi (2001) for male chorus and orchestra
La montagna grave (terzina di Dante, Purgatorio, IV, 88)
Guerra (text taken from Farewell to arms by Hemingway)

from Il Caravaggio rubato (2016)
Variazione II for cello and orchestra (dedicated to Letizia Battaglia)

from Stabat Mater (2021) for chorus and orchestra (verses by Filippo Arriva)
V
VIII “Nenia” (solo voice Francesca Mangiapane)

Aria for cello and strings (1945)

from Sei studi sull’Inferno di Dante for chorus and orchestra (2019): Canto V “Paolo e Francesca” – Canto XXV

“Polly”, “Dumb”, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” for cello, chorus and orchestra