Beskrivelse
For Contralto solo, Chorus and Orchestra.
Looking outside the purely Western Europe tradition for inspiration and freshness, Karl Jenkins sets the 13th-century Stabat Mater text in Latin and English and has extended it to a universal depiction of grief with six other texts, some of them from ancient sources, in a variety of languages. The scoring is for voices and modern symphony orchestra augmented by indigenous instruments such as the Darabuca (Hand Drum) and Riq (Small Tambourine), and the Mey (Woodwind).
The work has been recorded by EMI Classics, performed by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir, the EMO Choir of Helsinki, with soloists Jurgita Adamonyte and Belinda Sykes, conducted by the composer.
By turns dramatic and reflective, the twelve-movement work incorporates the original 13th-century Latin sequence alongside additional texts such as Ave verum corpus (originally composed for Bryn Terfel), Lament by Carol Barratt, and English texts derived from ancient Babylonian and medieval Persian sources.