Palestrina/Barker       (Program Notes)

Palestrina's setting of the hymn "Stabat Mater" Is from a Collections of Motets in the Archives of the Papal Choir and it was composed for Pope Gregory XIV (1590-1592).  The work remained for a long time in manuscript (unpublished) and was jealously guarded as the special property of the choir for which it was composed, and by which it was sung every year at High Mass on Palm Sunday. In A. Adami da Bolsena's "Osservazioni per ben regolare il Coro dei Cantori della Cappella Pontificia" (Rome 1711), it is directed that care shall be taken that the Offertory on Palm Sunday shall be said suffcienpcly slowly to allow the motet "Stabat Mater Dolorosa" for double chorus, by Palestrina, to be sung Adagio, although the original manuscript contains no direction as to time or expression. It is said that a copy of the work was probably obtained by a Dr. Burney, an English historian, through Cavaliere Santarelli on his visit to Rome in 1770 and it is through him that the first edition is due. This edition appeared in London in "La Musica che si canta annualmemte nelle Punzioni della Settimana Santa nella Capella Pontlfica" (1771). Since then the work has been frequently re-published, amongst others, by Richard Wagner, whose edition was first published in 1877.

I was first attracted to the works of Palestrina as a young boy singing in church choirs in Atlanta, Georgia. At that time, I was quite moved by Palestrina's  pureness and clarity of writing. Later on, I was attracted to the contrapunto osservato (species counterpoint) usage and harmonic decisions in his compositions. I chose to re-compose/arrange Palestrlna'a "Stabat Mater", not only because it is one of his larger works, but because of the compositional ideas and harmonic content it contained. After discovering this work for myself, it seemed to me to that it would be well suited if set for string orchestra and in light of the fact that Palestrina composed no instrumental music; I decided to rework the piece.  My re-composition of the work holds very true to the original but I have made changes in tempi, registration, and, in a few places, harmonic progression. However overall, the work is intact.