Stabat Mater

The
temple bell stops but the sound keeps coming out of the flowers.
Basho

Arvo
Pärt’s spiritual awakening was inseparable from his awakening to
what he came to consider the ultimate verities of music. In medieval
plainsong and organum he found a source that implied a different
notion of what music is about. His music then developed affinities
with both medieval liturgical chanting and styles close to folk
cultures. Thus the highly stylized, hieratic Latin poem Stabat
Mater matches
Pärt’s style to perfection.

Before
a note is played we become aware of the inescapable symbolism of the
number three arising from the mesmeric rhythms of the three-line
stanzas, the three voices and the three strings. Immensely distant,
the strings emerge out of the void in a slow swinging undulation.
Melodic lines droop from their own weight, drop by drop emulating the
tears of the Mother at the Cross. The first entry of the voices is
electrifying, out of monody comes lucidly spaced polyphony. Each time
the rondo alternations of voices and strings recur they are subjected
to internal variations. Pärt punctuates the magnificent poetic
meditation with three instrumental ritornelli
and the work closes with an extended Amen.