Stabat Mater

Program Notes

I set 8 of the 20 verses of the Stabat mater dolorosa text. I chose these verses for their focus of intense empathy for the mourning Mother, through which we then experience our own grief at Christ’s death and, eventually, glory by his redeeming.

The driving musical force behind my work is the appoggiatura, an accented grace note. I’ve interpreted it here as a “sighing” figure in somewhat the manner of madrigal tone painting. When used maximally, especially as I’ve done in verses 2, 5, and 6, it transforms into more of a sob and pierces the texture with profound sorrow. The harmony contributes to this atmosphere of course. One of the most prominent progressions centers around major chords moving by thirds (E major/C major). With added notes, modal borrowing, and inversions, I think major can project doleful at least as well as minor!

I’ve also made considerable use of silence in the piece, primarily in the introduction, where it underlines the “stunned” stage of mourning. The futility of words is also conveyed in the splitting up of the syllables of individual words among different voice parts. The original plainchant melody, which appears at 5 points during the piece, proceeds here uninterrupted, as a voice from the ether, but the words of those still on earth are as broken as they themselves are.

A soprano solo presents the 5th and 6th verses, accompanied by “broken” male voices. Following the elaborate textures of much of the piece, it seemed appropriate to close in relative simplicity and sparseness. The arrival at “Christe” at the start of verse 7 is intended to be disarmingly straightforward and tender. While in the last two verses we are indeed heading towards the climax of “paradisi gloria”, I wanted to avoid the reflexive option of a grand apotheosis here. The last two words of the piece never rise above mp and in fact gradually fade away to ppp at the end. The effect aimed for is uplift by way of “lightness”, as a balloon drifting up and off into the heavens. Paradise may be glorious but is also a leave-taking.

Stabat Mater
Stabat Mater

Stabat Mater dolorosa
Iuxta crucem lacrimosa
Dum pendebat Filius

Cuius animam gementem
Contristatam et dolentem
Pertransivit gladius

Quis est homo qui non fleret,
Matrem Christi si videret
In tanto supplicio?

Quis non posset contristari,
Christi Matrem contemplari
Dolentem cum Filio?

Eia Mater, fons amoris
Me sentire vim doloris
Fac, ut tecum lugeam

Fac, ut ardeat cor meum
In amando Christum Deum
Ut sibi complaceam

Christe, cum sit hinc exire,
Da per Matrem me venire
Ad palmam victoriae

Quando corpus morietur,
Fac, ut animae donetur
Paradisi gloria