User:Ukexpat/Stabat Mater



Of two hymns, Stabat Mater Dolorosa (about the Sorrows of Mary) and Stabat Mater Speciosa (joyfully referring to the Nativity of Jesus), Stabat Mater usually refers to the first, a 13th-century Catholic hymn to Mary, variously attributed to the Franciscan Jacopone da Todi and to Innocent III.

The title of the sorrowful hymn is an incipit of the first line, Stabat mater dolorosa ("The sorrowful mother stood"). The Dolorosa hymn, one of the most powerful and immediate of extant medieval poems, meditates on the suffering of Mary, Jesus Christ's mother, during his crucifixion. It is sung at the liturgy on the memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows. The Dolorosa has been set to music by many composers, with the most famous settings being those by Palestrina, Pergolesi, Scarlatti, Vivaldi, Haydn, Rossini and Dvořák.

The Dolorosa was well known by the end of the fourteenth century and Georgius Stella wrote of its use in 1388, while other historians note its use later in the same century. In Provence, about 1399, it was used during the nine days processions.

As a liturgical sequence, the Dolorosa was suppressed, along with hundreds of other sequences, by the Council of Trent, but restored to the missal by Pope Benedict XIII in 1727 for the Feast of the Seven Dolours of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The joyful hymn Stabat Mater Speciosa ("The beautiful mother stood") first appeared in a 1495 edition of the Italian poems of Jacopone da Todi which contained both Stabats; but the Speciosa was almost forgotten until it was re-transcribed in 1852 in the "Poètes Franciscains en Italie au Treizième siècle" in Paris. The Speciosa has since been viewed as one of the tenderest Marian hymns and one of the seven greatest Latin hymns. It has become part of standard oratorios, and given rise to various Christmas carols.

Text and translation
The following translation by Edward Caswall is not word-for-word. Instead it has been adapted so as to represent the meter (trochaic tetrameter), rhyme scheme, and sense of the original text.

Stabat mater dolorosa juxta Crucem lacrimosa, dum pendebat Filius.

Cuius animam gementem, contristatam et dolentem pertransivit gladius.

O quam tristis et afflicta fuit illa benedicta, mater Unigeniti!

Quae moerebat et dolebat, pia Mater, dum videbat nati poenas inclyti.

Quis est homo qui non fleret, matrem Christi si videret in tanto supplicio?

Quis non posset contristari Christi Matrem contemplari dolentem cum Filio?

Pro peccatis suae gentis vidit Iesum in tormentis, et flagellis subditum.

Vidit suum dulcem Natum moriendo desolatum, dum emisit spiritum.

Eia, Mater, fons amoris me sentire vim doloris fac, ut tecum lugeam.

Fac, ut ardeat cor meum in amando Christum Deum ut sibi complaceam.

Sancta Mater, istud agas, crucifixi fige plagas cordi meo valide.

Tui Nati vulnerati, tam dignati pro me pati, poenas mecum divide.

Fac me tecum pie flere, crucifixo condolere, donec ego vixero.

Juxta Crucem tecum stare, et me tibi sociare in planctu desidero.

Virgo virginum praeclara, mihi iam non sis amara, fac me tecum plangere.

Fac, ut portem Christi mortem, passionis fac consortem, et plagas recolere.

Fac me plagis vulnerari, fac me Cruce inebriari, et cruore Filii.

Flammis ne urar succensus, per te, Virgo, sim defensus in die iudicii.

Christe, cum sit hinc exire, da per Matrem me venire ad palmam victoriae.

Quando corpus morietur, fac, ut animae donetur paradisi gloria. Amen.

At the Cross her station keeping, stood the mournful Mother weeping, close to her Son to the last.

Through her heart, His sorrow sharing, all His bitter anguish bearing, now at length the sword has passed.

O how sad and sore distressed was that Mother, highly blest, of the sole-begotten One.

Christ above in torment hangs, she beneath beholds the pangs of her dying glorious Son.

Is there one who would not weep, whelmed in miseries so deep, Christ's dear Mother to behold?

Can the human heart refrain from partaking in her pain, in that Mother's pain untold?

For the sins of His own nation, She saw Jesus wracked with torment, All with scourges rent:

She beheld her tender Child, Saw Him hang in desolation, Till His spirit forth He sent.

O thou Mother! fount of love! Touch my spirit from above, make my heart with thine accord:

Make me feel as thou hast felt; make my soul to glow and melt with the love of Christ my Lord.

Holy Mother! pierce me through, in my heart each wound renew of my Savior crucified:

Let me share with thee His pain, who for all my sins was slain, who for me in torments died.

Let me mingle tears with thee, mourning Him who mourned for me, all the days that I may live:

By the Cross with thee to stay, there with thee to weep and pray, is all I ask of thee to give.

Virgin of all virgins blest!, Listen to my fond request: let me share thy grief divine;

Let me, to my latest breath, in my body bear the death of that dying Son of thine.

Wounded with His every wound, steep my soul till it hath swooned, in His very Blood away;

Be to me, O Virgin, nigh, lest in flames I burn and die, in His awful Judgment Day.

Christ, when Thou shalt call me hence, be Thy Mother my defense, be Thy Cross my victory;

While my body here decays, may my soul Thy goodness praise, Safe in Paradise with Thee.

Translation by Edward Caswall Lyra Catholica (1849)

Musical settings
Composers who have written settings of the Stabat Mater include Josquin des Prez, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Antonio Vivaldi, and Giovanni Battista Pergolesi; of the latter's setting, the German poet Tieck opined: "I had to turn away to hide my tears, especially at the place, 'Vidit suum dulcem natum'". Joseph Haydn's Stabat Mater is considered "a treasury of refined and graceful melody". Others who have written settings are Agostino Steffani, Giovanni Carlo Maria Clari, Emanuele d'Astorga, Winter, Raimondi, Vito, Lanza, Neukomm. In the 19th century, Gioachino Rossini wrote his setting after retiring from the composition of opera, while Antonín Dvořák wrote his setting when he was still active in writing secular music. Most of the settings are in Latin, but Karol Szymanowski's setting and Paul Bebenek's are in Polish. The "Stabat Mater" was most recently set to music, in a Russian translation, by Metropolitan Hilarion (Grigoriy Valerievich Alfeyev).

Others: John Browne, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Antonio Vivaldi, Charles Villiers Stanford, Charles Gounod, Krzysztof Penderecki, Francis Poulenc, Giovanni Felice Sances, Alessandro Scarlatti (1724), Domenico Scarlatti (1715), Pedro de Escobar, František Tůma, Vladimir Martynov, Arvo Pärt, Josef Rheinberger, Franz Schubert, Giuseppe Verdi, Pasquale Cafaro, Zoltán Kodály, Trond Kverno (1991), Pawel Lukaszewski (1994), Frank Ferko (1999), Salvador Brotons (2000),  Bruno Coulais (2005), the black metal band Anorexia Nervosa, the symphonic metal band Epica on the album The Classical Conspiracy, Karl Jenkins and Stefano Lentini included in the film The Grandmasters by Wong Kar-Wai.


 * Stabat Mater by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
 * Stabat Mater by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
 * Stabat Mater by Joseph Haydn
 * Stabat Mater by Domenico Scarlatti
 * Stabat Mater by Gioachino Rossini
 * Stabat Mater by Karol Szymanowski
 * Stabat Mater by Francis Poulenc
 * Stabat Mater by Arvo Pärt
 * Stabat Mater by Stefano Lentini
 * Stabat Mater by Antonín Dvořák
 * Stabat Mater, ballet by Peter Martins
 * Stabat Mater Speciosa by Paul Bebenek
 * Stabat Mater by Karl Jenkins
 * Stabat Mater by Antonio Vivaldi
 * ''Stabat Mater Ixxi by Sasha Lazard