A new recording of the choral music of Agostino Steffani (1654-1728) rather underplays the presence of star mezzo Cecilia Bartoli. She does have one cantata to herself, dispensing the expected fireworks, but is remarkably subdued on the album's title work.
The focus in this collection, presented by the Coro della Radiotelevisione Svizzera and I Barocchisti under Diego Fasolis, is rightly on the man who wrote the music.
Steffani must have been a character. Picked up and plucked out of Venice at just 13, because of his pretty treble voice, Steffani had a charmed career, working mostly in Germany. Steffani was a diplomat and priest and at ease in the opera house; with Handel, he was a composer favoured by the Elector of Hanover. When the German ruler crossed the channel to become George I of England, he took Steffani's music with him. Indeed, numerous pieces on this recording use manuscripts from English libraries. The Stabat Mater, Steffani's final composition, was written for London's Academy of Ancient Music. It is a heartfelt portrait of the mourning mother of Christ, introduced by an emotionally gripping Bartoli against highly charged string playing.
More overt drama comes later when the chorus describes the scourges of the whip or tenors Julian Pregardien and Daniel Behle flare up in Imflammatus et accensus.
Steffani's full instrumental accompaniment, rendered by one of the best Baroque bands around, is an asset when it comes to catching the lash of those whips or the gravitas of the final Amen.
