Stabat Mater

In the transition from manuscript to print editions of music, there were often moments of confusion about authorship; in fact, one could argue that the very notion of “authorship” and “the work” underwent a revolution with the systematization and wider distribution made possible by the printing press. With multiple, durable copies in existence, it became possible to track the history of a piece: where it started, who wrote it first, who later revised and altered it. For a very long time the glorious Stabat Mater of Giovanni Pergolesi (1710-36) was known primarily in an arrangement made by J. S. Bach. Bach had the score and made alterations (one can say “improvements”) in details of instrumentation and harmonic structure. Yet the core, the soul of the Stabat Mater, is Pergolesi. He was born in Jesi east of Florence and spent much of his tragically short career in Naples, where he helped define the new “opera buffa” genre. Despite those successes, Pergolesi is remembered today because of his sacred Stabat Mater. Like Allegri’s famous Miserere, this otherwise obscure composer exists in the annals of all-time great church composers by virtue, essentially, of a single, masterful utterance.

(c) Jason Stell