Solomon, this 10-minute survey necessarily involves almost laughable concision.
All in all, this DVD simply takes on too much. Add to this the fact that the celebrated frescoes don't include the actual crucifixion (the subject of Haydn's music) at all, and you quickly conclude that the whole thing should have formed the subject of two DVDs, at the very least, rather than one.
And then there's the music itself. This reviewer can't be convinced that seven pieces (here given in their orchestral, rather than string quartet, versions), all of them slow and in a spirit of lamentation, can ever be made to work. You can readily imagine Haydn getting to his final, extra, movement -- representing the earthquake that reportedly coincided with Christ's death -- with heart-felt relief. This bit at least could be loud and fast.
The third DVD, containing Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, falls somewhere between the other two. This time there's no "listening guide," but the plus is that the visual accessories -- frescoes on the inside of the dome of the Santuario dell Beata Vergine dei Miracoli in Saronno -- are of limited extent and interest. They thus form an appropriate background rather than an intrusive and overly dominant feature. Pergolesi's music -- the product of an 18th century teenage genius who heaped on feeling to a degree not previously heard -- is excellently sung (by Barbara Frittoli and Anna Caterina Antonacci) and played. Some laid-back remarks from Muti on the Italian musical tradition constitute one of two bonus items; the other looks at Pergolesi himself.
Finally, a CD. Saint-Saens' Carnival of Animals is a piece of music the educated classes play to their children in the hope of endearing them to otherwise nightmarish piano lessons. The highly colorful sleeve of this incisively bright and highly recommendable new version reinforces this function. It's music the composer, largely known in his day as a pompous academic, refused to have played during his lifetime. Today it's his best-known creation. The CD contains several back-up Saint-Saens items, not all immediately engrossing. The best of them is the lively Septet for string quartet plus double-bass, piano and trumpet.
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