REVIEW: Pergolesi’s Radiant ‘Stabat Mater’ at La Jolla SummerFest

Ken Herman
San Diego Story

August 3, 2026

At first glance, Sunday’s SummerFest program struck audience members as unusually eclectic: a pair of violin solos by Lili Boulanger, a string quartet by Viktor Ullmann, some songs from Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess (arranged as solo violin baubles by Jascha Heifetz) and Giovanni Pergolesi’s sacred cantata Stabat Mater!

In his short introduction before the program started, SummerFest Music Director Inon Barnatan revealed the logic beneath these unlikely bedfellows. Each composer on the program had just begun to make their mark in classical music when death dropped the final curtain. Lili Boulanger—the younger sister of the godmother of 20th-century music Nadia Boulanger—died at 24 and Pergolesi was struck down at 26.

Gershwin was in his thirties when his opera was staged in 1935, and he died two years later. Ullmann was in his forties when the Nazis incarcerated him in Theriesenstadt, Hitler’s “model” concentration camp, where Ullmann wrote and performed his String Quartet No. 3, Op. 46, in 1943. A year later, as the Axis Powers were losing the war, he was sent to his death at Auschwitz.

Of course the obvious exception to this scenario comes immediately to mind. When Mozart died at age 35, he had composed over 600 works, including a number of operas, symphonies, and string quartets that quickly became part of the classical music’s essential repertory. Mozart, of course, was a prodigy as well as a genius, so he did enjoy a head start!

In Boulanger’s short solo pieces, a dreamy “Nocturne” and a capricious “Cortège,” violinist Karen Gomyo’s sophisticated approach balanced a dulcet, silvery timbre with the requisite flair to indulge its modest dramatic flights. She was accompanied by pianist Inon Barnatan. Heifetz gave violinist Randall Goosby ample opportunity to indulge his panache in the Gershwin songs, especially the driving, jazzy arrangements of “A Woman Is a Sometime Thing” and “There’s a Boat That’s Leavin’ Soon for New York.” George Li provided Goosby with deft piano accompaniment.

Although Ullmann’s String Quartet No. 3 is written as a single movement, it is not difficult to hear the four sections within it that reflect a traditional four-movement string quartet. If the reflective opening section, more modal than tonal, suggests the muted aspiration of the composer’s plight, the athletic “Presto” that follows is filled with clipped, animated motifs. It is difficult not to hear the dark “Largo” section as a lament, but Ullmann ends his string quartet with contrapuntal verve that leads to a more confident finale in a major key.  SummerFest violinists Blake Pouliot and Stefan Jackiw, violist Masumi Rostad, and cellist Alisa Weilerstein gave a stirring, profound account of the Ullmann.

The SummerFest program lists Ruben Valenzuela as organist for the Pergolesi Stabat Mater, but in truth he conducted the cantata from a small chamber organ in the center of the stage. Unlike the typical cantata written for chorus and instrumental ensemble, Pergolesi composed his Stabat Mater for just two solo voices and strings. Valenzuela was fortunate to work with two vocalists who have frequently performed with his own early music ensemble Bach Collegium San Diego, soprano Clara Rottsolk and countertenor Reginald Mobley.

I have heard these two singers perform with the Bach Collegium numerous times, and I still savor their stellar performance together when the Bach Collegium performed  Cantata No. 91 at the June 2024 Bach Festival in Leipzig, Germany. Rottsolk’s compelling soprano becomes more lustrous as it ascends to its glorious uppermost range without losing the agility needed for the style of 18th-century figurations.

Mobley’s warm, beautifully centered countertenor proved the perfect complement to Rottsolk in their several sparking duos in the Pergolesi Stabat Mater, and each of their solo forays probed the spiritual depth of this sacred text that has inspired so many composers. With seven string players from the SummerFest roster and Valenzuela’s astute direction, this performance of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater certainly approached the goal of the final words of the text: Paradisi gloria—the glory of Paradise!

This program was presented by the La Jolla Music Society on August 2, 2026, at The Conrad in downtown La Jolla.