Oratorio: La passione di Cristo secondo San Marco. Buenos Aires opera house.

Speranza

PEROSI.


Lee Won Min (tenor),
Davide Pelissero, Franco Podda (baritones),
Davide Baronchelli (bass)

Orchestra Sinfonica Classica di Alessandria, Coro Johann Sebastian Bach di Milano, Arturo Sacchetti


This was Perosi’s first oratorio dated 1897. It is a trilogy:

“The Last Supper”,

“The Sermon on the Mount” and

“The Death of the Redeemer”.

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The almost unremitting use of deep voices,
low strings, horns and trombones,
provides for an atmosphere of infinite sadness
and gloom which only deepens as
the work progresses to the utter
desolation of the darkness
falling over the earth and
Christ’s final utterance and death.

Massenet, having heard the finale, is said to have exclaimed:

“Perosi is the Italian Bach”.

Bring your hair shirts for this one.