It's an unlikely thought: fate gave Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-1736) all of 26 years to create his oeuvre, which includes such contrasting masterpieces as Stabat Mater (supposedly written immediately before his death) and the comic opera La serva padrona - which, despite being his most popular dramatic work, was never intended as an independent composition, but as an intermezzo to Il prigioniero superbo, the fourth of his seven operas. Under the direction of Gottfried von der Goltz, the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra has now undertaken, in the context of a single concert, to provide a complex look (with the visual experience of the pantomime included) at all three sides - in terms of genre - of the composer: the creator of instrumental music, who wrote concertos (Violin Concerto in B major), the serious tone of his church music (Salve Regina in C minor for soprano and strings) and the immortal opera buffa (La serva padrona - with opera pantomime).
And how does Count Unico Willem van Wassenaer (1692-1766), a Dutch diplomat who was born 18 years before Pergolesi and outlived him by three decades, fit into this programme with his Concerto armonico in F minor for four violins? Because after being published anonymously and as late as 1980, the aristocrat's most important composition, the series of Concerti Armonici (of which this is the fifth) was believed to be the work of Pergolesi.

Presented by: Müpa Budapest