I just added the Stabat Mater by Angelo Comisso. Angelo Comisso did not only use the Stabat Mater text. Part 7 is titled Nell’apparir del sempiterno sole composed by Francesco Soto de Langa (16th century) and rearranged by Comisso Stabat Mater. I did some research and I think it is a Christmas song.
Though I am not a real Jazz-fan, I love it, because of the trumpet and piano solo’s and improvisations. And the womens’s choir is great! I contacted Mr. Angelo Comisso about his Stabat and he told me he wanted to compose his Stabat Mater as a tribute to all mothers in the world, to reflect the pain of a mother losing her son. Every day and in every corner of the world we have “Stabat Maters”, grieving for the loss of their children.
Mr. Hubert Maillard pointed me to this CD.
Mater Dolorosa and Anna Akhmatova
Through my Ultimate Stabat Mater Website I frequently receive messages from music lovers, musicians or composers about performances, recordings and compositions of the Stabat Mater. It always make me happy but I was extra surprised when Mr. Richard Blackford from England contacted me. He informed me he had been commissioned by the Bournemouth Symphony Chorus and Orchestra to compose a Stabat Mater and it was only when he came across four poems by Anna Akhmatova that a completely different approach occurred to him. So he had not just used the Latin text but combined it with some poems of Anna Akhmatova from her cycle Requiem, written in 1938, the Stalin-period, when her son Lev had been arrested and in prison for a long time. Indeed, I was surprised because, years ago, I got a Stabat Mater by Georgi Dmitriev (from Russia) in my collection and he too did use the Requiem poems by Akhmatova in his Stabat Mater. I told Richard about Dmitriev’s composition. We came in contact and I decided to attend the London premiere of his Stabat Mater on October 19th in the Cadogan Hall where I had the opportunity to meet Richard in person.
I had an exciting, wonderful evening! I was deeply impressed by Blackfords Pietà. He chose this title after revisiting Michelangelo’s statue in St. Peter’s in Rome. In the program book Richard says: I had seen it many times when I had lived in Rome, it was the luminescent beauty of the marble that struck me this time. How could something so sad , so poignant in its expression of a mothers grief for her son, be at the same time so beautiful, so inspiring of hope?
Please listen to Richard Blackford discussing his Pietà.
Finally, I have to confess something. When I was back home again I was looking for my Dmitriev CD and I found out that Dmitriev did not use a single word of the Stabat Mater text except the title of his composition: Stabat Mater Dolorosa!
New: Niels la Cour
Mr. Hubert pointed me to several CD’s missing on my site. I just added one: Niels la Cour from Denmark composed in 2005 three Marian songs for mixed choir: Totra pulchra es, Stabat Mater and Regina caeli. Only two stanza’s (1 and 9) are sung. The Stabat Mater song is only 2.28 minutes. From the booklet:
Niels la Cour has reworked the famous Stabat Mater hymn en miniature and picked out a few individual verses which he juxtaposes in two very different textural types. He stages the emblematic introductory words of the piece “Stabat Mater Dolorosa”, in a decidedly dolorous madrigalistic harmony. Then Mary’s sorrowful vision of her son on the cross is conjured up in ghost like quickly fading fugato. From there the movement leaps to the beginning of the second half of the hymn , which praised the motherly love of Mary. Here La Cour unfolds a grand optimistic-sounding fugato followed by stepwise-descending melismata towards an open cadence that leads back to the torment of the “Stabat Mater”.
A modern translation into German
What a special surprise to receive a German translation of the Stabat Mater text! But I was even more impressed after I found out that the translation had been done by Philippa Wells, a 17(!) year old student from King’s School in Worcester.
And of course, I did wonder how a 17 year old girl could get interested in translating a Latin text from the Middle Ages!
This is what she wrote to me:
…I am a 17 year old student, interested in Latin, German and Linguistics so I knew I wanted to translate something as part of my Extended Project Qualification. I read through quite a few Latin poems, but many were fairly long, or difficult to understand.
When I read the Stabat Mater I was completely arrested by the simplicity of the words, but the pathos of the piece is what I found captivating. The shades of grief felt by the Virgin Mary were lamented, in fact James Macmillan even goes so far as to label it as the ‘ultimate Kindertotenlied.’ My religious background made the context comprehensible to me, but my translation is aimed at a modern German audience, who do not need a religious background to access the translation. I translated it into German, because the pre-existing German versions I found all used very heavy, old German and I wanted to make it accessible to a current audience. I think that whilst Latin texts have an integrity in the original language, the decrease of Latin in a Globalised world means that these texts will lose their meaning, as less people understand them. Therefore, translating them, whilst losing the original plaintive nuances of the Latin, has benefits, since it can reach a larger audience. Of course, a translation is only a version of the original, but one could suggest that the meaning of the text finds new expression through a different language as the idiosyncrasies of that language document it in a different way…
It was an honour for me to add Philippa’s translation to my site. Her German translation is a part of her dissertation for her Extended Project Qualification, titled: A Translation of the ‘Stabat Mater’ text into German for a modern German audience. It contains 13 pages. Her research also gives new insights into issues surrounding the translation of a text, such as how close it should remain to the original, and how far it should be tailored to the intended audience. Thank you, Philippa, you did a brilliant job!
New: Lukas Borzik
I added a new Stabat Mater by Lukáš Borzík from Slovakia. Mr. Hubert Maillard was so kind to bring my attention to this CD. In the booklet the composer says:
This Stabat Mater brings three different points of view on the Mother who stood by her dying Son. They are expressed by three motifs of different emotional timbre – the motif of lament, motif of pain and the motif of silent sorrow – stated in the bass solo. The slow alternations of the widening and narrowing metro-rhythmic pulse of the composition forms a kind of analogy to the visual movement towards the suffering of the Mother of God and/or the movement away from the invisible wounds hidden deeply in her heart.
Lukas Borzik is number 282 in my collection of Stabat mater composers (on CD).
New: Nicola Logroscino
And again I can delete a name from my list of Missing CDs: Nicola Logroscino!
Thanks to Mr. Hubert Maillard from Switzerland. He was so kind to send me, as a gift, this CD with Stabat Mater by Nicola Logroscino, an Italian composer from the 17th century. His Stabat Mater reminds me very much of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater. One part impressed me, it is the duet ,em>Vidit Suum dulcem natum</em>. It’s only one minute but I love it.
Thank you very much Mr. Maillard!
Jan Engel
I just added Jan Engels Stabat Mater. For a long time Jan Engel was on my list of missing CDs. Thanks to Mr. Lee I could add this CD to my collection. He sent the CD to as a gift. He wrote:
…I happened upon the Stabat Mater site many years ago and searched out many of the titles listed here. I always wanted to contact Hans and let him know how much I appreciated his work but unfortunately I never did. Kathy and I wanted to send you this CD of Jan Engel’s Stabat Mater to show our appreciation to you for continuing the site…
Via Crucis
I just added a CD Via Crucis, a composition by Dick Le Mair, a Dutch composer. In part four (the fourth station of the cross: Jesus meets his mother), he uses the first Stanza of Stabat Mater. This part reminds me of the introduction of Cantate 106 (Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit) by Johann Sebastian Bach. I love this music very much because of its intensity. Dick Le Mair was so kind to send the CD to me. Thank you very much!
Walon Church Amsterdam
On Friday March 15th I attended a special concert in the context of the Art project Troubles Waters (fourteen art stations of the cross), in the Walon Church, Amsterdam. The Hieronymus Ensemble sang Stabat Mater by Orlando di Lasso (1585). Eight men, they sang beautifully! As with Palestrina’s Stabat Mater the choir is divided into two choirs of four voices. The two choirs (upper and lower voices) alternate in singing a pair of stanzas, until they come together in the closing section in a glorious mixture of eight-part polyphony and antiphonal block harmony. I really loved it.
The Walon Church is the 11th station of the Art Project. Here you see the Salt Water Skin Boats by Erica Grimm.
…Salt Water Skin Boats proposes an analogy between our bodies and the vast ecology of the global ocean: between the life-sustaining, precariously balanced ocean chemistry and the chemistry of our own salt-water-filled bodies. The monk of history would cast himself into the ocean at the mercy of the elements to bring vision and light (Salvation) to wherever and whomever God (Divinity, Holy Spirit) so designed. The coracle had no rudder or anchor. Setting sail was an act of faith, of trust. The ambient soundscape, accessible by QR code and cell phone technology, functions as a living, breathing, sounding entity—the life of the ocean brought into the listener’s awareness. In the last two hundred years, human actions have changed the chemistry of the ocean. We are crucifying the earth… (from www.artstations.org)
Art and the Stations of the Cross
During the forty days of Lent (from March 6th till April 22th 2019) there will be a very special art project in Amsterdam: Art Stations of the Cross, fourteen stations of the cross through the center of Amsterdam. The work of leading artists from home and abroad gives a contemporary translation to the suffering of Christ as often depicted in fourteen stations. The first station of Cross is the condemnation of Jesus and the last is his burial. Last year this exposition was in Manhattan (2018) and before in Washington DC (2017) and London (2016). For me there is a direct link to Stabat Mater Dolorosa, the twelfth station: The grieving Mother stood weeping beside the cross where her Son was hanging. To help you find your way, you can use the map below.
