Thank you for joining us for this evening’s performance of Italian Baroque.

I, personally, am particularly pleased to be performing Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater again, mainly because I am a sucker for harmonic suspensions and this piece of full of them. Throughout, we have these bitter-sweet moments of agony brought about by clashes in harmony that, whether musically trained or not, we instinctively know need to be resolved. Yet the clash has a painful beauty about it, as does the anticipation of the resolution which takes on an almost ecstatic quality. Intellectually, I wonder if a great work should rely so heavily on one harmonic device, but we know music speaks to the emotions first and foremost.

My heart cannot resist Pergolesi’s emotion tug. I hope you found equally powerful emotional connections yourselves this evening, shared or unique,

With very best wishes,

Cecelia