Stabat Mater (Szymanowski)

Stabat Mater
by Karol Szymanowski
The composer
CatalogueM60
Opus53
TextStała matka bolejąca (Stabat mater dolorosa)
LanguagePolish
Composed1925-1926 (1925-1926): Warsaw
Movementssix
Vocal
  • SATB choir
  • soprano, alto and baritone soloists
Instrumentalorchestra

Karol Szymanowski's Stała matka bolejąca (Stabat mater dolorosa), Op. 53, was composed in 1925 and 1926. Scored for soprano, alto and baritone soloists, SATB choir and orchestra, it sets Jozef Janowski's Polish translation of the Marian hymn in six movements. His first composition to a liturgical text, it is characteristic of his late period in being partly based on Polish melodies and rhythms; a stay in the Tatras mountains, at Zakopane, in 1922 had led him to describe Polish folk music as "enlivening [in] its proximity to Nature, [in] its force, [in] its directness of feeling, [in] its undisturbed racial purity."[1] Indeed, Szymanowski's use of Polish musical elements together with the Polish translation here is unique.

  1. ^ Leon Pommers, "Polish Aspects of Karol Szymanowski's Style" (Masters thesis, Queens College of the City University of New York, 1968), 30