The Stabat Mater is a 13th-century poem, in Latin, which describes the suffering of the Virgin Mary as she watches Jesus die on the Cross. Though its authorship is uncertain - it was probably written either by the Umbrian poet Jacopone da Todi or by Pope Innocent III - the text is elegant, beautiful and simple.
An intense cry of pain in exquisitely rhymed couplets, its opening words were inspired by a verse in the Vulgate translation of St John's gospel: "Stabat Mater dolorosa, juxta crucem lacrimosa, dum pendebat Filius . . ."
Banned by the Council of Trent in 1546, the Stabat Mater was included in the Roman Missal in 1727 and is now sung on September 15th, the Feast of the Seven Sorrows of Mary. This liturgical tenacity has been echoed by its musical popularity: originally set on a melody of Gregorian plainchant, it has been reworked by an extraordinary variety of composers, from Josquin des Prés in 1500, to Arvo Pärt in 1985. There are also versions by Palestrina, Scarlatti, Vivaldi, Haydn, Rossini, Verdi, Dvorak, Szymanowski and Poulenc, among others. Bach wrote a "parody" using the text of a Lutheran translation of Psalm 50/51.
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi's 1736 setting, an extraordinary combination of operatic virtuosity and devotional pathos, is one of the most sumptuously beautiful amongst Stabat Maters, its poignancy for modern listeners increased by the fact that it was written when the 26-year-old composer was dying, possibly of tuberculosis, at a Franciscan monastery near Naples.