ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien / Wiener Singakademie / Jockel by Ravel, Rossini, Od (2025/2025), Dirigent Oscar Jockel, Wiener Konzerthaus, Vienna, Austria

The young conductor Oscar Jockel, who was awarded the Herbert von Karajan Prize in 2023, and a group of mostly equally young soloists, together with the Vienna Singakademie and the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, dedicate themselves to a vocal work that is extraordinary in many respects: his »Stabat mater« is one of the few sacred compositions with which Gioachino Rossini, whose numerous operas are an integral part of the repertoire of music theaters, is occasionally also present in the concert hall. Stylistically, the work - with choruses, ensembles, arias and even a recitative - hardly differs from a gripping bel canto opera. However, this setting of the sequence for the Feast of the Seven Sorrows of Mary would not be suitable for liturgical use anyway. Although the premiere of the first version, to which Rossini's pupil Giovanni Tadolini had also contributed, actually took place on Good Friday in 1833 in an Augustinian convent in Madrid, the premiere of the final version, which was entirely Rossini's work, was no longer performed in a church setting but at the Théâtre-Italien in Paris in 1842. The decisive reason why the piece survives today only as a concert work is its length alone: at almost an hour long, it is one of the most extensive settings of this text. Rossini's »Stabat mater« was only surpassed in this respect in 1877 by Antonín Dvořák's »Stabat mater«, which lasted just under one and a half hours - while Rossini's compatriot Giuseppe Verdi was to make do with just twelve minutes a further two decades later.