Mozart - Magnificat Petrassi - Magnificat And I Confess

I confessed last week that I'd never known Mozart wrote a setting of the Magnificat until beginning to research this series.   If you've never seen how massive a number of compositions Mozart wrote during his life time, go to a good university library and look at the Neue Mozart Ausgabe which the Online Digital Edition says currently runs 127 volumes.   He wrote a heck of a lot of music before his early death.  No one can know all of it.

This week I'll confess that, after listening to several performances, I don't really like his setting which seems too ... I don't know, "enlightened"?   Or perhaps too operatic?  There's nothing really wrong with it, it just doesn't move me.  But, he was Mozart, after all,  the composer who no less an expert than Schoenberg put second to only Bach in his counterpoint,   and who am I to second guess either of them?  If you love it and find it talks to you, then that's all that matters.  With that much music there's plenty of other stuff to love in Mozart's corpus of works.

I don't know if it might not be related but, though I love some of Goffredo Petrassi's later music, influenced by Anton Webern, I also didn't like his earlier neo-classical setting of the Magnificat.  There's some very good music in it but I couldn't keep my attention on it.  Here it is.

I.'Magnificat: anima mea Dominum'. Allegro - Stesso tempo - Andante - Tempo I 
II.'Et exultavit spiritus meus'. Sostenuto - Più mosso [03:38]
III.'in Deo salutari meo'. Moderato - Molto lento [05:15]
IV.'Quia respexit humilitatem ancillae suae'. Moderato [08:56]
V.'Quia fecit mihi magna'. Mosso con energia - Molto sostenuto, grandioso [12:02]
VI.'et sanctum nomen ejus'. Andantino - Adagio [13:07]
VII.'Et misericordia ejus'. Andante mosso [16:28]
VIII.'Fecit potentiam in brachio suo'. Andante mosso - Ancora più mosso - Vivo [18:07]
IX.'Deposuit potentes de sede'. Moderato [20:26]
X.'Esurientes inplevit bonis'. Andantino (non troppo) - Lento - Adagio [21:49]
XI.'Suscepit Israel puerum suum'. Andante sostenuto [24:21]
XII.'Sicut locutus est ad patres nostros'. Allegro sostenuto [26:35]
XIII.'Gloria Patri, et Filio'. Presto [28:21]

Sabina Cvilak, soprano
Coro del Teatro Regio di Torino diretto da Claudio Fenoglio
Orchestra del Teatro Regio di Torino diretta da Gianandrea Noseda.