The Stabat Mater is a powerful hymn dating from the
13th century that meditates on the suffering of Mary during
Christ’s crucifixion. The traditional Latin text, believed
to have been written by Jacopone da Todi (1228?–1306) has
been used extensively in Church liturgy since the 14th
century and has been set to music by over 400 composers
ranging from Josquin de Pré, Palestrina, Scarlatti, Vivaldi
and Pergolesi to Haydn, Boccherini, Schubert, Rossini and
Verdi to Szymanowski, Poulenc, Penderecki and Pärt.
Karl Jenkins says, “I tend to look outside the
purely Western European tradition for inspiration and
freshness so, apart from setting the religious text, I have
also included words by ancient writers from what is now the
Middle East. My Stabat Mater also features some indigenous
instruments and a female vocalist conjures sounds […]
characteristic of [the Middle East].”
Karl Jenkins has set the Stabat Mater poem in Latin and
English and has extended it to a universal depiction of
grief with texts, some of which originated outside the
Western European tradition.
The additional texts are: a choral arrangement of the Ave
Verum that Jenkins composed for Bryn Terfel; the
line And The Mother Did Weep (by Karl Jenkins) sung
in English, Greek and Aramaic; Lament with text by Carol
Barratt, sung in English; three lines from Are You
Lost Out in Darkness, from the ancient Epic of
Gilgamesh, revised into the trochaic quadrameter [used
for the Latin Stabat Mater] by the Welsh poet Grahame
Davies and sung in both English and Aramaic; and three
lines from Now My Life is Only Weeping by Jalal
al-Din Rumi, the 13th Century Persian mystic poet who
sought consolation in the Divine.
The instrumentation of Karl Jenkins’ Stabat Mater calls
for modern symphony orchestra augmented by ancient
percussion instruments, like the darabuca and riq, the
flute-like nay and double-reed duduk or mey, indigenous to
the “Holy Land” or “Middle-East.”
