The Stabat Mater is one of the most touching outputs of Catholic literature through the ages. It is the impressive result of the encounter between Marian piety and devotion, the universal feelings bound to maternity, birth, and the innocent suffering of children, and the literary forms born from the intertwining of Latin culture, new vernacular poetry, and music.
The Stabat Mater is one among the thousands (!) Sequences written in the late Middle Ages and up to the Council of Trent. While it is a false myth of musical historiography that the Council of Trent “banned” the Sequences, actually the Council admitted just a handful of them within the official worship of the Catholic Church. Sequences had been originally created as added words, to be sung one syllable per note, over Gregorian plainchant tunes (particularly on the long melismas of the Alleluias). Different from classical Latin poetry, they had normally rhymed lines and a metrics based on accentuation rather than on quantity. In this they showed kinship with the early outputs of vernacular poetry. Jacopone da Todi, to whom the Stabat Mater is traditionally ascribed, was in fact the author of beautiful song lyrics, called “laude”, in the early Italian vernacular; in one of them, Il Pianto della Madonna, he expresses feelings and moods which are very close to those found in the Stabat Mater. The stimulus for the creation of this Sequence comes from a Scriptural element, i.e. the mention, found in St John’s Gospel, that Mary, Jesus’ Mother, “stood” by the Cross during her Son’s agony. This brief remark is developed by Jacopone into a prolonged contemplation; seemingly, it regards Mary, but, going deeper, it is a contemplation of Christ with the eyes of his Mother. In other words, the faithful’s gaze is oriented to Mary only in order for her to direct it to Christ. Jacopone’s Sequence is a masterpiece of poetry, mystics and contemplation, and, as hinted above, it is grounded on the Scriptural Word, even though it expands on it in a personal fashion. Still, this Sequence was initially among the thousands which were discarded after the Council of Trent, to be reinstated in the official worship only in the eighteenth century, nearly one and a half century after Trent. The Sequence found its place in liturgy particularly on the occasion of the Seven Sorrows of Mary, which follows the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in September (14th and 15th respectively). It could also be employed during Passiontide, and it is used until present-day, for instance, in the pious exercise of the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday and on other Fridays in Lent. Due to its Marian content (thought, as said before, Christ is the true “protagonist” of the lyrics), this Sequence could not be adopted by Christians from other confessions than the Catholic Church. For a different example, the Victimae paschali (Easter Sequence) was transformed into a German Chorale by Martin Luther (Christ lag in Todesbanden), after an earlier German version already adopted by Catholics prior to the Reformation. Moreover, the melody of this Easter Sequence found its way even within the Genevan Psalter, which was normally based on newly-composed tunes. Notwithstanding this confessional issue, composers from outside Catholicism were keen to applaud the magnificent setting realized by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi shortly before his untimely death, at barely 25. Even Johann Sebastian Bach, who is rightly considered as the quintessential Lutheran composer, was enthused by this masterpiece written by a musician who was abundantly his junior: to the point that he transformed Pergolesi’s Stabat into a German Psalm (Tilge, Höchster) in order to make it suited for the official worship of the Lutheran Church.
Nonetheless, appreciation of Pergolesi’s setting was not universal. Some, particularly from the Northern countries, reproached it for what was perceived as an “operatic” style. This criticism is not fully unjustified, since Pergolesi in fact does draw from the rhetoric repertoire derived from opera; still, these means are considered as mere resources in the service of an important message. Moreover, a work contemplating a mother’s immense sorrow is so deeply human, so fully ingrained in the most intimate human experiences, that it cannot be neutral or detached. Thus, most composers who tried their hand in the Stabat Mater, mainly after its reinstatement in the Church’s worship, agreed with Pergolesi that a hyper-expressive language should be employed. This is also the case with Boccherini’s setting, recorded here, which draws abundantly from the rich chest of eighteenth-century opera, while, at the same time, preserving a sobriety quite unlike the language normally found on the operatic stage. This combination of intensity and restraint is rather unique, and contributes to the emotional power of this splendid work.
Chiara Bertoglio © 2023
The immediacy, awesome power and the heart-rending intensity of the maternal sorrows that makes the passion of Christ so emotionally involving are certainly not beyond the grasp of a versatile musician and composer like Luigi Boccherini, better known to the wider public for his prolific instrumental output then for his vocal works. In 1781, completely undeterred by the existence of the masterpiece by the same name written by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Boccherini unveiled the first version of his successful Sequence to the Virgin Mary, the Stabat Mater. The words of this hymn have been ascribed to Jacopone da Todi, and it is made up of 20 stanzas of three lines each, the first and second of which rhyme with one another. In his musical setting, the composer divides the work into 11 movements from a very essential instrumentation, namely solo soprano and string quintet. His treatment of the vocal part reveals his careful reading of the late Latin text in which three fundamental “voices” converge: The narrative one [the grieving mother stood weeping by the cross on which her son was suspended], the reflective one, when the author interrupts the story and addresses humanity as a whole [Who is that would not weep, seeing Christ‘s mother in such agony?] and the invocative one in the form of a prayer to the Virgin Mary [Oh mother, fountain of love, make me feel the power of sorrow, that I may grieve with you]. The solutions adopted by Boccherini wonderfully express this plurality of stylistics registers. Indeed, in the narrative sections a somewhat restrained melodic intonation prevails, adhering to the metrics of the words. At times it appropriates the gestures of music rhetorics, to effectively emphasize expressions of particularly moving intensity [such as, for example, the descending melody on the “pendebat” in the opening movement]. The reflective parts, on the other hand, where the Umbrian Monk turns his consternation into a universal feeling (O quam tristis; Quis est homo; Quis non posset), are set as recitatives. These, while undeniably reflecting the contemporaneous operatic language, may also be assimilated to the ancient practice of “cantillation”, often used in worship to ensure a better understanding of the Word. Finally, in the longest section which begins with the sixth stanza [Eja Mater] – a movement where the splendid solo cello stands out, imitating the human voice – the composer uses melodic expansions (Virgo virginun; fac ut portem) to justify the hymn-like nature that the passage assumes, indicating a real invocation to the Virgin Mary. The music emphasizes and strengthens this richness of accents; thematic ideas circulate between the parts and intertwine with the vocal line, using the technique of imitation. Preludes and postludes frame the arias, bringing coherence and unity to the work through harmonic, tonal and thematic correspondences. This is exemplified by the seventh movement, Tui nati, whose three stanzas are incorporated into a kind of A-B-A1 tripartite aria comprising an Allegro vivo, an Adagio – on the words “Fac me vere tecum flere crucifixo condolere” – and once more an “Allegro come prima” rehearsing motifs from section A and leading to a subsequent fugal passage concluded by an instrumental coda. The restrained intensity of final movement, Quando corpus (an Andante lento in the key of F minor which, together with C minor, is found throughout the work) confirms that this Stabat fully belongs in the sacred repertoire. A further and definitive confirmation of this is provided by the Recitativo e Aria accademica, “Misera, dove son… ah! Non sono io che parlo“, G.548, for soprano and Orchestra, written in an unmistakably operatic style. A long, accompanied recitative sets the scene for the aria expressing the distressed state of mind of Fulvia, the female protagonist of “Ezio”, an opera on a libretto by Metastasio (1728). She feels daughterly love for her culpable father despite the fact that he stands between her and her passionate love. Her mindstate is emphasized by the allegro agitato Assai tempo and the gloomy key of D minor. The 15 Arie Accademiche are concerto arias composed by Boccherini between 1786 and 1797; all of them are set to lyrics by Metastasio, as confirmed by Christian Speck’s critical edition, which is currently in print. Among them, G. 548 is the only one seamlessly composed and with no “dal segno” repeats; instead, the reprise builds up to the end through progressive intensification. However, the reappearance of section B in F Major after the climax likens it, though not in every way, to another musical form typical of the era, known as “durchkomponiert”, identifiable, for example in Mozart’s contemporaneous aria by the same title. The orchestration reflects Boccherini’s symphonic style which can be noted later on is Symphony No. 18 Op. 35 nr. 4, G.512. This is structured in three movements: an Allegro Assai in F major followed by an Andantino for strings only in B flat and an Allegro vivace, once again in F, comprising a Tempo di Minuetto. The general melodic structure is carried by the strings. It responds with thematic abundance and variety to the principle of motivic elaboration found at the foundations of the dialectic concept of the Sonata form. The wind section, on the other hand, never goes beyond the pairs of oboes and horns, proceeding in parallel, mainly providing a timbral filling. Boccherini used the first Movement of the symphony as an instrumental introduction in his 1800 revision of the Stabat Mater, where the vocal part is set for three voices reappears with some alterations including an impressive finale. While these changes, probably dictated by audience tastes, do not affect the overall structure of the composition, they do confer an artificial flavour, at odds with its original conception in 1781, which had an aura of genuine, inner faith. Indeed, the solo voice communicates the message of prayer with greater intensity, while the masterly balance of monody and polyphony which comes across to the listener succeeds with the rare efficacy in expressing the implacable contradiction found in hymn, namely the suffering and tragedy of death accepted for the sake of eternal life.
Maria Melchionne © 2023