Giovanni Battista Pergolesi - Stabat mater și Antonio Vivaldi - Nisi Dominus - Music box, 1^st of April, 2024

Stabar mater by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi and Nisi Dominus by Antonio Vivaldi, in a very novel performance from a record released on March 29^th by Pentatone, signed by the Project Amsterdam ensemble, led by countertenor Maarten Engeltjes, who is also a soloist, along with Israeli soprano Shira Patchornik.

It is a debut for all these musicians at the Dutch house Pentatone, which, of course, can be an event in itself. But what I really think turns this audition into an event is the refinement and science of interpreting the Baroque art of all the musicians involved.

I recently saw a documentary about the discovery of 4,000-year-old artifacts in Egypt, and I noted the archaeologist's statement that said: "Be careful how you breathe, just one breath can be enough for this layer of gold to detach."

Yes, that's how I would define the interpretation of old music, especially vocal music: just one breath is enough to destroy the whole. But this is also its beauty - this feeling of weightlessness, of fragility, in fact, human, which it conveys. And the great art of musicians is to preserve this sense of imperviousness and fragility and pass it on to the listener. What Maarten Engeltjes, Shira Patchornik and Prjt Amsterdam do abundantly.

Maarten Engeltjes is born in 1984, so she is 40 years old. She started singing at the age of 4, in a boys' choir, appearing in solo poses. He appeared as a countertenor for the first time at the age of 16. He graduated from The Hague Conservatory at the age of 23, his subsequent career being permanently ascending, with appearances on major stages of the world, along with legends of early music, such as Jordi Savall, Ton Koopman or the Les Arts Florissants ensemble.

In 2017, Maarten Engeltjes founded his own Baroque ensemble, Prjct Amsterdam, which he also directs and manages. They have recorded two discs at Sony, and here they are collaborating for the first time with Dutch label Pentatone.

Maarten Engeltjes is not a bright or very spectacular voice, but a very professional voice who knows exactly how to play baroque music, old music in general.

It is a delight to listen to him in Nisi Dominus by Antonio Vivaldi - and to meditate how the world was 300 years ago and how the people of that time knew how to make their life more beautiful, although death was closer to them than to any of us today.