Merchant banker commissions Stabat Mater

[ardcarp]

I was half listening to Sunday on R4 this morning when...

Three new musical settings of the "Stabat Mater" - the 13th Century Catholic hymn reflecting on Mary's suffering at the crucifixion - are about to receive their world premiere. We speak to the man who commissioned them: John Studzinski.

...popped up. One of the composers is Matthew Martin. I did not quite catch the names of the others, neither the date and time of their premiere...which will be sometime this week at St Luke's [?]

I gather John Studzinsky is the person who commissioned Roxana Panufnik's Westminster Mass.

[Pulcinella]

Ardcarp:

I was just about to resurrect the Stabat Mater thread.
Here is a link I have found.

http://www.genesisfoundation.org.uk/pressreleases/the-genesis-foundation-commissions-three-new-settings-of-the-stabat-mater/

[ardcarp]

Thanks, Pulcinella. You could mention it on the Stabat Mater thread too?

[Gabriel Jackson]

Thanks, Pulcinella. You could mention it on the Stabat Mater thread too?

Tõnu Kõrvits is a terrific composer.

[Daniel Hyde]

I shall be attending this event on Wednesday as a guest of The Sixteen. I am very much looking forward to hearing these three new settings - Matthew Martin's in particular - since I am about to make a complete disc of his works with the Magdalen Choir for the ROH/Opus Arte. The Stabat Mater is such a substantial text, and I'll be fascinated to see what these three very different composers have to say about it. One can never guess with commissions. I recently attended a premiere in Oxford of another substantial, well-known text/drama, and found it all somewhat underwhelming - fingers crossed for better this week. And hats off to the Sixteen for pursuing these types of projects.