STABAT MATER

Pergolesi’s masterpiece for Good Friday

​Erin Silangil (soprano), Catrina Poor (mezzo-soprano), Joe Turbessi (organ), Martin Ploderer (narrator - in German language)

Hardly any work of sacred music touches the listener as deeply as Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater. Composed just a few weeks before his untimely death, this work is a musical legacy of shattering intensity and, at the same time, of comforting beauty. In it, Pergolesi combines the deep sorrow of the Mother of God beneath the cross with music that not only expresses pain but transforms it into profound humanity.

The medieval poem Stabat mater dolorosa depicts the moment of greatest desolation: Mary stands beneath the cross of her dying Son. Pergolesi’s setting does not present this scene as a dramatic indictment, but as a quiet, poignant dialogue between voice and instrument, between suffering and hope. The famous duets and arias – sung in keeping with the style by Erin Silangil (soprano) and Catrina Poor (mezzo-soprano), with Joe Turbessi at the organ – unfold an emotional range that stretches from mournful heaviness to light-filled confidence – a musical journey through the Passion towards inner renewal.