I would like to write a post, at last, about my favourite ensemble playing Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater. It has been a long time (I think in 2006) since I visited their performance for the first time. Since then I have visited their concerts almost every year, in many churches all over the Netherlands, in the period around Easter. For years this project, titled the Pergolesi Ensemble, has been led by alto Marianne Selleger. By her side is singing Wendeline van Houten, soprano. The accompanying instrumental ensemble consists of saxophones in stead of strings! Apart from a few minimal adaptations, they remain true to the original composition by Pergolesi. And although, as I wrote in one of my lasts posts, Pergolesi is the best known, most performed and most recorded one, I love this sax version very much. I love the ‘painful’ sound of the saxophones because they fit perfect with the grief of the poem. In 2009 I added their CD with Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater in 2009.
In 2020 the Pergolesi Ensemble is playing Pergolesi’s Stabat in Amsterdam, Austerlitz, Oosterleek, Hellendoorn, Zaltbommel, Bussloo en Diepenveen. More information on the website: http://www.pergolesi.nl.
PIETÀ from Portugal
I got in touch with Mr. Eugénio Rodrigues, a Portuguese composer who lived and studied in the USA before moving back to Portugal, where he lives in Lousã, the town he grew up in. For information on his work and his biography, please visit his website at http://eugeniorodrigues.com/?cat=65.
In 2002, Eugénio was deeply impressed by a series of eight small paintings by the Portuguese artist Paula Rego in the chapel of the Palacio de Belém, the official residence of the Portuguese president in Lisbon. The canvases depict the life of Virgin Mary. He decided to compose music which should reflect those eight paintings and he started looking for texts with a connection to the paintings. That is how he came across my Ultimate Stabat Mater Website and he got the idea to compose a version of the Stabat Mater. However, after considering the contemporary character of Paula Rego’s work, he soon decided not to use the Latin text, but to look for more recent texts instead. He found wonderful poems by Miguel Torga, a 20th century Portuguese poet, that could fit his purpose, along with poems by other Portugese authors.
At this time he had recently moved to Lousã, where there is a Sanctuary to Our Lady of Mercy. This inspired him to compose the first section of his composition, titled PIETÀ, based on one of Paula Rego’s paintings, and a poem by Miguel Torga.
PIETÀ had its premiere in November 2019 in Lisbon by Nova Era Vocal Ensemble. Eugénio told me that various choirs from all over the world, from South Africa, the US, Canada to Greece, Spain and Portugal, have approached him for the score and are planning to perform it.
PIETÀ is scored for SATB a cappella choir, soprano soloist and includes percussion that can be played by choir members. Eugénio is now looking for funding to complete the other seven sections which will form his ‘Stabat Mater’.
I am grateful that Eugénio was kind enough to share the information about his composition with me and that he sent me the video of the performance. Please listen to PIETÀ!
New: Wishful Singing
Moore’s Stabat is a part of her composition Lux Aeterna: Vivid, commissioned by November Music Festival in association with the Hieronymus Bosch Foundation for the city of ‘s Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands. It is a Requiem. The text is based upon the Latin Mass for the dead. Part III is Stabat Mater (stanza 14 and 15). The Stabat Mater part is simple and spiritual. Minimal music with excellent singers!
The CD is titled What about Mary? Wishful Singing brings an ode to the most versatile woman ever: Maria. The five singers prove that Maria is an important source of inspiration for their music and wisdom.
Pergolesi’s Stabat with Dance
Usually, when I talk with people about Stabat Mater and my CD collection, I often hear them say: oh Pergolesi! Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater is undoubtedly not only the best known but also the most performed and most recorded one. On the Pergolesi page you will find a collection of many recordings and adaptations. This work seems to have inspired many composers to imitate, paraphrase and adapt (see Brunetti, de Nardis and Paisiello). The musical setting of Psalm 51 Tilge, Höchster, meine Sünden by the great Johann Sebastian is another example. There are also films that used parts of Pergolesi’s Stabat in the sountrack such as THX 1138 (by George Lukas, 1971), Jésus de Montréal (by Denys Arcand, 1989), Smilla’s Sense of Snow, (Billy August, 1997), Amadeus (Miloš Forman, 1984) and Mirror (by Andrei Tarkovsky, 1975).
Some time ago I was surprised by a completely different version of Pergolesi’s Stabat. It was performed in Muziekgebouw aan het IJ in Amsterdam on September 28th in 2019. Pergolesi’s Stabat for not just two female singers but also for three dancers! What a shame I could not visit the performance; it was sold out completely! Choreographer Peter Leung added a new layer in the composition: contemporary dance! Happily I managed to contact Peter Leung and he was kind enough to send me the complete video of the performance. I was surprised and impressed. I am happy Peter allowed me to show a part of the video on my site. I chose part IX Sancta Mater istud agas (stanza 11 until 15). Look at this dancing Stabat with: singers Tania Lorenzo (soprano) and Rosina Fabius (mezzo-soprano) alongside dancers Frederik Kaijser, Erika Poletto and Sophie Vergères and musicians from the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, conducted by Michael Gieler.
New: Osvaldo Guidotti
I just added another Italian composer Osvaldo Guidotti. Barbara Seppi from Germany was kind enough to inform me about Guidotti’s Stabat Mater and sent it to me for free. Thank you very much!
The cover of the CD booklet ays:
Osvaldo Guidotti, Stabat Mater
Il canto del dolore e dell’ amore
(translation: the chant of pain and love)
Guidotti composed his Stabat Mater on the occasion of the 450th anniversay of the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri in Rome.
New: Anonymous from Poland
This Stabat Mater, from the album Bogarodzica (Mother of God) is a Polish anonymous melody by vocal ensemble Jerycho. The songs on the album have been dedicated to Mother Mary. Mr. Marcin from Poland was kind enough to point me to this album. Indeed, it’s a very special edition. The CD-booklet is a real book of up to 60 pages! It’s a shame I can’t read Polish!
New: Howard Blake
I just added a new composer to my site: Howard Blake with The Passion of Mary. Mr. Hubert Maillard pointed me to this CD. His Stabat Mater is a part of Blake’s second oratorio, titled The Passion of Mary. In Part 3 the first ten stanza’s of the Stabat Mater text have been used. The London premiere was in 2008 in Cadogan Hall. Here is some information about the complete composition:
Part 1: Visitation, Nativity and Childhood (Mary, Prophet, Simeon, Jesus as a boy and Choir).
Part 2: Temptation in the wilderness , Sermon on the Mount, Crucifixion (Satan, Jesus as a man, and Choir).
Part 3: Stabat Mater Dolorosa (Mary and choir).
Part 4: Resurrection, Salve Regina (Mary, Soloists and Choir).
New: Angelo Comisso
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”.
