The ultimate Stabat Mater site

a musical journey through the ages...

Stabat Mater by Nicola Burnett Smith and Phil Vernon

It is truly fascinating that even today people are inspired to set the old, medieval Stabat Mater text to music. I always love to discover new composers, both from the past as in the present. That happened some time ago when I came in contact with Mr. Phil Vernon, who came across my site when he was writing a new version of Stabat Mater lyrics in English. In doing so he aimed to retain the deeply emotional personal and spiritual core. He was thrilled to find Nicola Burnett Smith willing to set his poem to music. She has been an actor, singer, composer and musician since 1986. Her composition is written for three female voices and double bass.

This Stabat Mater, music by Nicola Burnett Smith, words by Phil Vernon,  had its  first performance on Monday 15th
April 2019 as part of Holy Week Mass at St Paul’s Church (The Actors’ Church), Covent Garden in London, featuring vocalists Sarah Lambie, Anna Braithwaite and Nicola Burnett Smith with Dai Price on double bass. I am so delighted Phil and Nicola were so kind to share the video of the performance with me. I listened to it over and over, I love it, it is beautiful in its simplicity and the voices are moving. Thanks! Here is the poem by Phil Vernon:

She sank to her knees on the shaking ground
when she reached the place.
A thorn pierced her heart,
as she raised her eyes
from the foot of the cross,
to her dying son.
A mother’s pain.
And we weep too,
as though we were there.
We see her shudder
to share the deep-bone pain he bore for us.
He died alone.
Mother, let me too
kneel down with you,
bear all I can of all he bore,
share in his love
and in the path he pointed to.
I know he felt those wounds and died for me –
don’t push me away –
mother, I need to feel this too:
I need to know the meaning of this place.
He died for us.
Let me find my harbour in what happened in this place,
let me find my harbour in your arms,
and in his grace.

New: Stephen Paulus

I just added the Stabat Mater from Stephen Paulus (1949 – 2014), an American composer. It was on the cd American Declarations from the Saint Louis Chamber Chorus conducted by Philip Barnes. This cd was (another) gift from Mr. Hubert Maillard from Switzerland. I was so surprised by the text from Philipp Barnes in the CD booklet where I read:

…Another mother’s grief is recounted in the celebrated 13th century hymn, the Stabat Mater. While doubt surrounds its authorship the power of its graphic imagery is undeniable. Little surprise, then, that so many composers across centuries and continents have been draw to it; one CD collector, Hans van der Velden had gathered 241 versions by the time of his death…

Thank you so much Mr. Maillard and Mr. Philip Barnes!

Desmond Fisher and Jacopone da Todi

Desmond Fisher was an Irish journalist, who worked as a reporter, correspondent and newspaper editor in the United Kingdom, the United States and in his native Ireland. Desmond got in touch with me after he stumbled upon The Ultimate Stabat Mater Site during his research for his book Stabat Mater, the Mystery Hymn. Desmond Fisher was fascinated by the Latin poem and dedicated the final two years of his life to this book. He was interested in how true the familiar English translations are to the original Latin. What did the author really try to say? Why did he use a particular poetic style? And… who was the author anyway? His first objective was to determine which of the seven listed contenders was the most likely candidate as composer of the Stabat Mater poem. This list includes three Popes, three Saints and one layman, Jacopone da Todi. Desmond Fisher thought it most likely that Jacopone da Todi was the composer, despite having been imprisoned and excommunicated by a pope. In Chapter 8, titled Pros and Cons, Fisher presents ten(!)  arguments arguing for Jacopone da Todi’s authorship. However, he concludes by saying:

…Nevertheless, in spite of all those arguments in favour of Jacopone’s authorship of the poem, it has to be admitted that in style and content it is very different from the other poems that can be definitely credited to him…

Only after this solid, historical study to the origin and authorship of the Stabat Mater text, Desmond presents and explains the two translations he made himself; a literal translation from the latin text, and a more poetic interpretation in verse. He then compares, analyses, and discusses several other well-known English translations of the poem by Edward Caswall, Beatrice E. Bulman, D. F. MacCarthy and the Collegeville Hymnal.

I was delighted to read Chapter 23, A Dutch Contribution  which is dedicated to the initiator of the Ultimate Stabat Mater site, Hans van der Velden. Hans’ English translation is also presented in the book! The book was published in 2015. Desmond Fisher died on 30 December 2014; he was 94 years old. His son, John Fisher, was so kind to contact me and send me a copy of the book. Thank you so much!

 

 

Maltese translation (revised)

In 2018 Tom Dawkes was so kind to send me an e-mail about the Irish Gaelic translation on my site. Tom must have a real talent for languages, as today I received a revised translation of the Maltese translation on my site! This is what he wrote to me:

…listening this morning to a programme about the Czech composer Antonín Dvořák. One of the items played was a section of his Stabat mater, and this put me in mind of your website. I noticed that you have a Maltese version, and as I encountered Maltese through a school friend I have kept an interest in it — though I have never visited Malta and would not claim more than a smattering of the language. I do, though, know about the structure of the language, and how it is written, and I could see that many words were written in a simplified form. 

Maltese uses the Roman alphabet, but adds some extra letters : ċ as in English cheese; ż as in English zoo, whereas z is like German z as in Zeit; ġ as in English gem, whereas g is as in English get; and ħ, which is like hin English help, whereas Maltese h is silent as in English honour (the combination għ is silent, but lengthens the preceding vowel). 
I cannot claim that it is 100% accurate — I ran it through the Google Translate web-page, which is a useful help, despite some very odd results from time to time —  and a Maltese speaker would undoubtedly want to make some further corrections, but I am confident it is nearer to an authentic Maltese text. The translation matches the Latin fairly closely, and where you have given more than one Latin version I have retained the one that most closely matches the Maltese…
I added Toms revised version to the site. Thank you so much, Tom!

Six new additions!

Robert and Kathy Lee from Baltimore, Maryland have been supportive to my site for a long time. In 2019 I received Jan Engels Stabat Mater as a present and last month (June 2020) he sent me list of six(!) Stabat Mater composers not yet in my collection:

Robert and Kathy shared with me: I don’t remember exactly when I found Hans’ website but I used it extensively. I not only discovered the Stabat Maters he had but the record labels they were on, which were then sources of even more sacred music. I even searched through the missing composer list, probably more than once. So Hans played a significant part in helping me put together my collection.

They were so kind to donate all these CDs to me.  I added them to the site (and YouTube channel) and again I could delete some composers from the list of Missing CDs. I am so grateful, thank you both very much!

New: Jacob Cooper

Thanks to Christine Read I got acquainted with Jacob Coopers Stabat. She wrote to me:

On my way home from work last night, I turned on the local classical radio station in the middle of a composition that was unlike anything I had heard before. I’ve learned that I can often hear something unfamiliar at late hours, and yesterday was no exception. They were playing Jacob Cooper’s Stabat Mater Dolorosa. It was so beautiful and moving that I stopped at a quiet place and just listened to the rest of it in the dark. It moved me to tears, particularly in these times of stress and worldwide tragedy. Please add it to your collection, if possible. 

Both works on this album take as their starting point a single moment from an older work (Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater and Caprice no 6 in G minor by Paganini) and through processes of repetition, distortion and in the case of the Stabat mater, extreme slow-motion, create a completely new soundscape.
For me the most remarkable feature of this CD is the text. It does not focus on the Virgin Mary’s grief about Jesus’ death but on maternal grief about the loss of her daughter!

Missing Cds: Bernasconi

On the web page Missing Cds you will find a list of over 400 composers who may have composed a Stabat Mater that never has been recorded or even never has been performed. It always makes me happy to delete one from the list as I did recently with Howard Blake and Nicola Logroscino.
Andrea Bernasconi, a composer on my list, was born in Italy, in 1706. Andrea started his career in Italy but in 1755 he was appointed to the post of Kapellmeister at the Bavarian court in Munich where he produced several operas, a few symphonies and a great deal of church music. The manuscripts of the church music were preserved in the Allerheiligen-Hofkirche in Munich until 1944, when the entire collection was destroyed by Allied bombing. Fortunately a few of the sacred works survived in other libraries, including two settings of the Stabat Mater in C minor and G minor. This is what I learned from Mr. John A. Rice who contacted me about Bernasconi. Mr. Rice is a music historian and he is responsible for the YouTube channel Settecentista. The primary aims of his videos are two:
1) to help listeners learn the conventions–melodic, harmonic, and formal–that underlie eighteenth-century music; and 2) to introduce listeners to the musical delights and analytical insights that await them as they go beyond the music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.
He is working on an edition of the two Stabat Mater settings, which (as far as he knows) have not been performed since the eighteenth century. John Rice was so kind to share this video with me. For me it is interesting to have a first hearing of the opening movement in a ‘virtual performance’ which we, John Rice and me, hope will encourage choral conductors to perform it ‘live’.
NB: The words in capital letters above the music refer to voice-leading schemata as introduced by Robert Gjerdingen in his book “Music in the Galant Style.” Some of the terms (such as Prinner and Sol-Fa-Mi) were introduced by Gjerdingen in his book; others (such as Lully and Le-Sol-Fi-Sol) were introduced by others, including John Rice.

Stabat Mater in film

Mrs Stine Balslev from Denmark pointed my attention to the soundtrack of a German TV mini series Eight Days. She thought most of the lyrics on the album are from the Stabat Mater text. She recognised a few words and wanted to look up the full text – that was how she found the website. I listened the soundtrack on Spotify carefully (it’s worth listening, I love it!) and indeed several tracks seemed to be based on the Stabat Mater text, like the tracks Trafficker, Passion and Horus. The text is sung by the wonderful soprano Caroline Adler. When I tried to find out more information about the lyrics in Eight Days I realised there are many examples of Stabat Mater text in films (and in my collection!) and I would like to mention them now.
Ennio Morricone, famous for the soundtrack for Once upon a Time in the West, composed a Stabat Mater for the film Il Sorriso del grande Tentatore (The Smile of the great Temptator).
The first movement of Vivaldi’s Stabat Mater has been used in the soundtrack of The talented Mr.Ripley.
The Stabat Mater by Stefano Lentini has been composed for the film The Grandmaster (2013) by Wong Kar-Wei.
The soundtrack of the George Lukas film THX 1138 contains a small Stabat Mater, composed by Lalo Schifrin. It starts with a line from the first part of Pergolesi’s work, but then develops into a gloomy orchestral work. It plays during the end credits.
The film Cactus by the Australian director Paul Cox is also said to have Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater on the soundtrack, but I do not know which parts have been used. And there are more films that used parts of Pergolesi’s Stabat in the soundtrack such as Jésus de Montréal (by Denys Arcand), Smilla’s Sense of Snow, (Billy August), Amadeus (Miloš Forman) and Mirror (by Andrei Tarkovsky).

David Reichelt is the composer of the soundtrack of Eight Days. This is the story: A 60 kilometer wide meteor is on collision course with Earth. The anticipated strike zone is right in the middle of Europe. Estimated survival rate: Zero. The United States try to knock the meteor off course with nuclear weapons, but fail. All of Europe is on the run. A family do whatever they have to do to survive when the world spins out of control.
And here is the Stabat Mater track:

Stabat Mater, Rock Opera?

Thanks to Mr. Antonio Nardi from Italy I learned about a new Stabat Mater ‘style’, composed by the Italian singer-songwriter, composer and television host, Franco Simone. Listening to his Symphonic Rock Opera Stabat Mater I was completely flabbergasted by the melodies, the rhythm, the voices, the intensity! Its accessibility is striking, a modern opera with a text from the 13th century. I love it! About his work, Franco Simone says:

Fascinated by the dazzling beauty of the various Stabat Maters delivered to the history of Great Music, first of all those of Rossini and Pergolesi, for about thirty years (it had become a kind of idea fixed) I repeated to my friends that I also wanted to compose a Stabat Mater of mine, without copying anything, simply letting myself be guided by my passion. The story of the pain of the Virgin before the Son on the cross for me has become a metaphor for the pain of an entire humanity lost in a planetary restlessness.

Franco Simone has used the complete Stabat Mater text, all twenty stanza’s are sung. There are ten parts, every movement consists of two stanza’s. He composed his Rock Opera for three voices and orchestra. Franco himself is one of the singers, the other two singers are Anglo-Italian tenor Gianluca Paganelli and rocker Michele Cortese. Unfortunately I could not get or buy a CD. But you can listen and watch the video here:

New: Flagello and Carr

Courtesy of Mr. Hubert Maillard from Switzerland I could add two new Stabat Mater compositions to my site.  The first one is by Nicolas Flagello (1928-1994) who composed a Stabat Mater just as a part of a composition dedicated to Martin Luther King titled  The Passion of Martin Luther King, a combination of five texts from the Latin Liturgy and excerpts of the famous speeches by Martin Luther King like In the Struggle for Freedom, We have got some difficult Days ahead and I have a Dream.

 

The second one has been composed by Paul Carr (born in 1961). Paul Carr was commissioned by the English Arts Chorale in 2017 to write the Stabat Mater which received its World Premiere on this CD. Paul Carr has divided his Stabat Mater in six movements. He gave them English titles:
I At the Cross, II Who would not weep? III O thou Mother, fount of love! IV All I ask of thee,         V Thy grief divine, VI In Paradise with Thee.
The last movement is the longest and begins with a reiteration of the words of first stanza (Stabat Mater Dolorosa). I listened to his Stabat many times because I love it!

In 1997 I created the Ultimate Stabat Mater website for Hans with the program FrontPage. At that time he had around 40 Stabat Mater CDs. His notes on the composer, the music, the texts and translations and the different versions all came online. After this he managed the site by adding new composers and translations regularly. At the time of his death in 2005 he had 211 Stabat Maters. After his death I continued collecting the information and managing the site. I wish to thank the Dutch Stabat Mater Foundation which gave me the financial support in 2014 to renew this site!