I was recently again surprised by a present from Mr. Hubert Maillard from Switzerland. He sent to me the CD by the Marian Consort: In Sorrow’s footsteps. The CD has a new Stabat Mater composer, Gabriel Jackson from the UK. Thank you very much Mr. Maillard!

Celebrating its tenth anniversary with its tenth recording, The Marian Consort plays to its twin strengths in a lovingly conceived programme coupling two pillars of Renaissance polyphony with twenty-first-century settings of the same texts, including a newly commissioned Stabat Mater by Gabriel Jackson. A range of subplots – Palestrina’s influence on Wagner, Charles Burney’s collecting of Allegri and Palestrina – make this truly a story of interconnections: a path on which the present’s footsteps constantly overlay the past’s. At the centre is Allegri’s Miserere, whose convoluted reception history itself becomes part of the story and whose performance here fully exploits the world-famous acoustic of Merton College’s chapel.
From: https://www.marianconsort.co.uk/product/in-sorrows-footsteps/

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.

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!