Anonymous (Naples)

About the composer
These pseudopolyphonic Stabat Maters (falsibordoni) were probably first sung in villages in southern Italy on the Friday before Palm Sunday. Nowadays the Feast of the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin - 15 September - is the most important date. Nothing is known about who composed these Stabat Maters. They probably origin from early medieval times. Often they are sung by the villagers during processions where the songs were performed beside the shrines of the villages, acting like the stations. Performances by religious brotherhoods of polyphonic Stabat Maters of this kind can also be found on the islands of Corsica and Sardinia.
The Italian musicologist Dinko Fabris, who is very interested in the old brotherhoods of Italy and their music, wrote a book about them:
Le confraternite dell'Italia Meridionale e la tradizione dello 'Stabat Mater' prima e dopo Pergolesi

About the Stabat Maters

Date 1400 - 1600?
Performers Soprano, Tenor
Length 2.35 minutes
Particulars A simple intonation of the Stabat Mater for two voices.
Textual variations Only stanzas 1, 2, 9 and 20 are performed.

Colorbar 1

Date 1400 - 1600?
Performers Soprano, Tenor , Bass and Choir
Length 7.47 minutes
Particulars This Stabat Mater à trois voix (for three voices), based on a manuscript found in Monopoli, is performed in a mixed form with a Stabat Mater based on a manuscript from Santoro.
Textual variations Only stanzas 1, 2, and 20 are performed in the three-voice Stabat, each stanza sung twice. The choir sings the other Stabat (only the first stanza) as a kind of chorus before and between the stanzas by the soloists.

CD information

CD Alpha 009: Musica napoletana per la festa della Vergine dei Sette dolori
About this CD This CD tries to paint a picture of the festivities that took place in the streets of Naples in the 18th century during processions hold in honour of the Virgin of the Seven Sorrows, on the Friday before Palm Sunday.
Recorded in Paris, Februari 2000
Choir Les Pages de la Chapelle
Conductor Olivier Schneebell
Soloists Patrizia Bovi, soprano
Pino de Vittorio, tenor
Bernard Arrieta, bass
Other works Anonymus: Tarantella
Francesco Durante: Concerto nr 4 en mi
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi: Stabat Mater
Added Unknown (PER 03)

E-mail: stabatmater@dds.nl

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