The Entombment (Stabat Mater Prayer) from a Book of Hours The Art Institute of Chicago
“Stabat Mater Dolorosa” is the title (or part of the title) of every work on this mixtape. It’s an easy translation for people who know some Latin roots: The Sorrowful (dolorrosa) Mother (mater) Stood (stabat). It is the first line of a 13th C. hymn of disputed origin* that is still sung today, after being banned for a couple centuries in the Middle Ages and Renaissance for some oblique reason.
The Latin text can be found on Wikipedia, along with two much duller-sounding English translations. Composers from the 17th C. on up to the present day have been inspired by the text, depicting as it does perhaps the saddest possible scene in the panopy of sad human scenes – that of a mother (in this case Mary) watching her son (in this case Jesus) die a slow and incredibly painful death. Or maybe he’s already dead.
I played Karol Szymanowski’s large-scale Stabat Mater on the radio show a couple years ago – I believe it is one of the great religious oratorios of all time, if not the greatest, and I am most definitely NOT an expert on religious oratorios – but it was hearing Arvo Part’s Stabat Mater for the first time this year while putting together shows in honor of his 90th birthday that jump-started my thinking on the subject more recently. (A movement from the former is on this mixtape, and the entirety of the latter.)
In searching for other composers’ Stabat Maters I soon ran into a fantastic Youtube channel, which provided a motherlode of music and info and is definitely worth exploring if you want to hear more. The site is clearly a labor of love, the work of an obsessive. Several of the selections in this mixtape are from the site, which is just called Stabat Mater; those tracks are noted – gratefully – with an asterisk. You can type “Stabat Mater” and “Youtube” and get there, or you can use this link:
This mixtape starts with one of the earliest and most beautiful Stabat Maters, Palestrina’s from the late 16th C., before leaping up into the 20th and 21st centuries. No jibber-jabber from me on this program, just music. I just jotted some notes on a few of the lesser-known composers under the playlist entries.
I hope you enjoy it. Happy holidays, even if the one evoked here is the death of Jesus, not the birth. Good luck to everyone getting through this winter.
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* It is possible – some now say likely, even – that the text’s author was the warmongering Pope Innocent III, prosecutor of the genocidal Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars in the south of France and the man in charge of the Fourth Crusade that saw the brutal siege and sacking of Constantinople, a Catholic city at the time. Christianity, the Western European version at least, is a demented death cult. It has ruined the world.
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0:00:00
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1524–1594) Stabat Mater, a 8 (1590-1?)*
Bruno Turner: Pro Cantione Antiqua
(Alto)
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0:09:34
Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937): Stabat Mater; I. Stala Matka Bolejaca (1925-6)
Jadwiga Rappé (alto), Jadwiga Gadulanka (sop) & Andrzej Hiolski (baritone),w/ Antoni Wit: Narodowa Orkiestra Symfoniczna Polskiego Radia
(HMV)
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0:16:47
Jeanne Demessieux (1921-1968): Stabat Mater (1950)*
Michelle Leclerc
(Motette Ursina)
Composer & organ virtuoso Jeanne Demessieux was the first female organist to sign a recording contract. She had signed to record Messiaen’s collected works (of which there are many, many…) but she got throat cancer and then died at the too-young age of 47.
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0:21:24
Vladimir Martynov (1946- ): Stabat Mater (1994)*
Tatiana Grindenko: Ensemble Opus Posth & the Sirin & Alkonost choirs
(Long Arm Records)
Martynov is not so well known in the West, but is – based upon a Discogs page with 35 entries – a significant presence in Russia. The Kronos Quartet and Gidon Kremer have promoted his music in the West, incl. the Kronos Quartet with a Nonesuch CD in 2011 entirely of his music.
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0:25:11
Roman Padlewski (1915-1944): Stabat Mater* (1939)
Anna Szostak: Polish National Radio SO of Katowice, Camerata Silesia,
& Katowice City Singers’ Ensemble
(DUX)
Padlewski died a young man, as you see. He died as nobly as one could, fighting the Nazi occupation as a part of the Polish resistance. One can only wonder how many artistic super-geniuses were cut down among the tens of millions who died in that war, but Padlewski left us this, so at least one. Lost in the war was a violin concerto and several string quartets.
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0:44:33
Urmas Sisask (1960-2022): Stabat Mater (1988)*
Anne-Liis Treimann: Chamber Choir Eesti Projekt
(Finlandia)
Sisask was an Estonian composer of mostly sacred music. He developed his own mode, consisting of pitches based on the trajectories of planets in our solar system.
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0:48:04
Arvo Pärt (1935- ): Stabat Mater
David James (counter tenor), Lynne Dawson (sop) & Rogers Covey-Crump (tenor)
w/ Thomas Demenga (c), Vladimir Mendelssohn (va) & Gidon Kremer (v)
(ECM New Series)
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1:11:55
Lera Auerbach (1973- ): Sogno di Stabat Mater (2008)*
Daniel Bard (va) w/ Candida Thompson: Amsterdam Sinfonietta
(Stabat Mater Youtube Channel)
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1:25:06
Vladimir Godár (1956- ): Stálá Matka (Stabat Mater)
Iva Bittová w/ Marek Stryncl: Solamente Naturali
(ECM New Series)
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1:44:36
Wolfgang Rihm (1952-2024): Stabat Mater*
Helmuth Rilling: Stuttgart Bach Collegium & Gächinger Kantorei Stuttgart
(Hänssler Classic)
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1:49:30
Lisa Streich (1985- ): Stabat
Lorenzo Donati: Ut Insieme Vocale-Consonante
(Wergo)
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2:16:33
Ib Nørholm (1931-2019): Nordic Stabat Mater, part 5*
Michael Bojesen: Camerata Chamber Choir w/ Neils Ullner ©
(Stabat Mater Youtube Channel)
The Danish composer Ib Nørholm was one of five Scandinavian composers commissioned by the Camerata Chamber Choir to compose one part of a 5-part Stabat Mater for the group. I don’t think this is on a commercial recording other than perhaps a self-release…
Concentration Camp 