Stabat Mater

[ardcarp]

Bless you.

[EnemyoftheStoat]

The Rossini Stabat Mater is brilliant

Even with the Mahler 1 quote in the last movement?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I think jean's selections (Palestrina, Pergolesi & - especially - Browne) match my own most closely; except that I'd swap Rossini for Szymanowski.

[Beef Oven!]

I think jean's selections (Palestrina, Pergolesi & - especially - Browne) match my own most closely; except that I'd swap Rossini for Szymanowski.

And with due regard to the OP, why?

[Nick Armstrong]

Quite! I sang in it forty or so years ago, and I can still remember cujus animam - and the chorus doesn't even sing that bit.

One of the few pieces I've ever walked out of. It was a decent performance in King's Chapel, Cambridge. I rapidly started to resent the fact that my time was being wasted

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

And with due regard to the OP, why?

Oops! (Read the Question carefuly, fhg minor!)

Browne - the superb "machinery" of the overlapping polyphony: tides of glorious sound; always a jolt when it comes to an end (it could go on forever as far as I'm concerned).
Palestrina - the cool intensity; gently compassionate and with a detached presentation that makes the ... this is billicks, innit ... but it's accurate billicks.
Pergolesi - known it for years (Ferrier): simply beautiful and beautifully simple.
Szymanowski - because it's a damn fine wallow.

Why not Rossini or Dvorak? Well, I haven't heard them in years, but when I did, they both struck me as ... going on a bit. Probably time for a re-listen. Why not Penderecki? I used to like this, but the last time I listened to it, it all sounded too familiar and predictable (the best pieces never sound like this, no matter how often you hear them).

[Pulcinella]

I listened to the Browne and have to say that I found it too cheerful (but not rivalling the Rossini!). I was suprised to read that it was composed for private devotional, not liturgical, purposes. And the promise of Paradise that both Poulenc and Szymanowski deal with so well (IMO) is not even in the accompanying printed text. Perhaps someone (Jean?) can clue me in about this.

Of course sentimental reasons count for liking a piece, Beefy. I have sung in the Haydn, Verdi (from Quattro pezzi sacri), and Szymanowski (Latin, not Polish), all very different.

Thanks for the link, ardcarp; I hope that the thumbs down on the site were for quality of video/sound, not the music. I see that the piece is included in an interesting looking Naxos anthology that I might splash out on, even though it creates some duplications in my collection.

There was a discussion not that long ago about the Poulenc, following a broadcast performance. It's not a piece that works for me, as it comes across lacking any great sense of coherence (compared to the Gloria, say, which has similar short sections but for me a better overall structure). Perhaps this is a problem created by the very nature of the text: the Dies Irae sequence, for example, allows for much more variation (think Tuba mirum, and Lacrymosa). Perhaps too that's why I think what Part has done suits the text so well.

Thanks for responses so far; they've at least set me thinking.

[jayne lee wilson]

Tempted to say, after Alban Berg's "the only 6th, despite the Pastoral", that the only Stabat Mater is the one by Karol Szymanowski.
Few works are closer to my heart than this. Only Suk's Asrael affects me as intensely.

Premiered in Warsaw in 1929, it's impossible not to think of what happened to that city after 1940. The children dying in the streets.
It's a memorial to a culture, but it speaks to you - to you alone.
Deeply Polish, yet a universal statement.

In the moment you experience it, you know it is true.
And you know it will be true, for ever.

[french frank]

Thank goodness you're back, JLW - they wanted to send me out looking for you! Trust all well...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Thank goodness you're back, JLW - they wanted to send me out looking for you! Trust all well...

But she wouldn't! (Something to do with not having the right curtains for the weather, if I understood correctly.) But very welcome back, Jayne: for this relief, much thanks: and hope all is well.

[Beef Oven!]

Oops! (Read the Question carefuly, fhg minor!)

Browne - the superb "machinery" of the overlapping polyphony: tides of glorious sound; always a jolt when it comes to an end (it could go on forever as far as I'm concerned).
Palestrina - the cool intensity; gently compassionate and with a detached presentation that makes the ... this is billicks, innit ... but it's accurate billicks.
Pergolesi - known it for years (Ferrier): simply beautiful and beautifully simple.
Szymanowski - because it's a damn fine wallow.

Why not Rossini or Dvorak? Well, I haven't heard them in years, but when I did, they both struck me as ... going on a bit. Probably time for a re-listen. Why not Penderecki? I used to like this, but the last time I listened to it, it all sounded too familiar and predictable (the best pieces never sound like this, no matter how often you hear them).

Erudite and instinctively sure, as ever

But I love the Dvorak and Penderecki too

[ardcarp]

Thanks for the link [to the Nystedt], ardcarp; I hope that the thumbs down on the site were for quality of video/sound, not the music. I see that the piece is included in an interesting looking Naxos anthology that I might splash out on, even though it creates some duplications in my collection.

Don't mention it, Pulcinella. It is a much more effective piece than a glance at the score would suggest. The opening cello fifth on the open bottom strings, especially played in a big acoustic, is almost terrifying. I did the piece a couple of weeks ago, and I was fascinated by the effect it had on the audience who, whilst not a particularly specialist bunch, were nevertheless awestruck by it.

BTW, must get to know the Szymanowsky. Any good version to recommend?

[Vox Humana]

I listened to the Browne and have to say that I found it too cheerful (but not rivalling the Rossini!). I was suprised to read that it was composed for private devotional, not liturgical, purposes.

Well, there's private and private. Certainly votive antiphons like Browne's Stabat mater were non-liturgical in the sense that hey were not sung as part of the daily round of hours services (Matins, Lauds, Prime, etc, etc), but they were certainly sung in churches. They were private in the sense that they were sung for the souls of the benefactors who had endowed their performances, but I have never read any suggestions that the public was not permitted access to churches while they were being sung.

For sheer agony you can't beat Howells's Stabat mater. It has been suggested that the pain you hear is Howells's own rather than Mary's and that may well be the case. A "difficult" work for everyone involved, including the listener, but worth the effort.

[jayne lee wilson]

Thank goodness you're back, JLW - they wanted to send me out looking for you! Trust all well...

Sorry about that, ff...
Greetings, fhg...

As Schoenberg might have said...

Life was - never easy...
But ANOTHER crisis broke out!
A grave situation was created -
But Life goes on...

[jean]

I listened to the Browne and have to say that I found it too cheerful ...

Cheerful? I am dumbstruck!

And the promise of Paradise that both Poulenc and Szymanowski deal with so well (IMO) is not even in the accompanying printed text. Perhaps someone (Jean?) can clue me in about this.

There's been quite a lot of variation in the text over the years, some of it quite minor, but the Browne has sections I have never come across anywhere else.

One of the most achingly beautiful parts sets the (otherwise unknown to me)

Stabat mater rubens rosa
Iuxta crucem lacrimosa
Videns fere criminosa
Nullum reum crimine

And to give the lie to the oft-repeated claim that pre-Council of Trent composers didn't pay any attention to the words, there's his setting of

Et dum stetit generosa...
Plebs tunc canit clamorosa
Crucifige! Crucifige!

I'm writing from memory, and I can't remember how it ends.