rossini's Stabat Mater - The Grant Park Music Festival

Friday, July 20 and Saturday, July 21, 2012
Aguardo in April 1842. The work was adapted for use in Rossini’s funeral service at La
Trinité on November 21, 1868, and heard again when his remains were reburied among
those of other heroes of Italian culture at Santa Croce in Florence in May 1887.
Rossini’s Stabat Mater, though based on a text which limbs the sorrows of the
mother of Christ, encompasses a wide range of emotions in its ten movements, from
stern tragedy to hopeful expectancy. Like Verdi’s Requiem, the Stabat Mater has been
accused of borrowing too much of the theater to wrap the ancient liturgical words,
though Rossini preferred to think of the music’s long melodic arches and undeniable
drama not as sacrilege but as opera’s offering to the Church. Indeed, in the last four
movements — those which he added in 1841 — Rossini anticipated the brilliance and
emotional weight of the most ambitious passages in Verdi’s Requiem (whose initial
inspiration was, perhaps not coincidentally, Rossini’s death). This intensity of expression
is really quite extraordinary, since Rossini was not overtly religious, though he never fully
outgrew the cultural foundation of Catholic tradition in which he had been raised. When
the priest at his last rites asked the obligatory question about his beliefs, the dying
composer responded, “Would I have been able to compose the Stabat Mater and the
Petite Messe solennelle if I had not had faith?” From the quiet introspection of its two a
cappella movements to the titanic wailings of its closing fugal Amen, the Stabat Mater
is one of the greatest documents of sacred music of 19th-century Romanticism.
Introduction (Chorus and Soloists)
Stabat Mater dolorosa
The sorrowful Mother stood
juxta crucem lacrimosa
weeping by the cross
dum pendebat Filius.
where her Son was hanging.
Aria (Tenor)
Cujus animam gementem,
Her spirit cried out,
contristatam et dolentem,
full of anguish and sorrow,
pertransivit gladius.
as if pierced by a sword.
O quam tristis et afflicta
o how sad and distressed
fuit illa benedicta
was that blessed Woman,
Mater unigeniti!
Mother of the only-begotten Son!
Quae maerebat et dolebat
How She grieved and suffered
et tremebat cum videbat
and trembled as She saw
nati poenas inclyti.
the agonies of her Son.
Duet (Soprano, Mezzo-Soprano)
Quis est homo qui non fleret
What man would not weep
Christi Matrem si videret
to see the Mother of Christ
in tanto supplicio?
in such torment?
Quis non posset contristari
Who would not be saddened
piam matrem contemplari
seeing the pious Mother
dolentem cum Filio?
grieving for her Son?
Aria (Bass)
Pro peccatis suae gentis
For the sins of the world,
vidit Jesum in tormentis,
She saw Jesus in torment
et flagellis subditum.
and beaten down with whips.
Vidit suum dulcem natum
She saw her sweet Son
moriendo, desolatum,
dying in desolation,
dum emisit spiritum.
giving up His spirit.
2012 Program Notes, Book 3 A39