Today's cd/Stabat Mater

Pergolesi, Stabat Mater/Vivaldi, Motet, and Stabat Mater/1994

The selection now playing is the Vivaldi Stabat Mater.



On Good Friday a few years ago, I heard this on a classical music program. I was so moved by the music that I bought it and play it each year on this day. It is the saddest, yet most beautiful music I think I've ever heard. It matches the subject closer than any music I know. The title is an abbreviation of Stabat Mater Dolorosa, which means The Sorrowful Mother Was Standing. Whether one is a Christian believer or not, those of us who are mothers can feel this sadness, this worst of all griefs. A few of the words:

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?