Palm Sunday marks the start of Holy Week – that time between the triumphant entrance of our Saviour into Jerusalem and His Crucifixion.
The previous evening we’d attended a performance of Piero Nissim’s Stabat Mater at the church of San Cassiano a Vico.
This church was built in the 8th century on a river island created by the Serchio in an area called Vicus Insularis and a stretch of medieval wall face dating back to the 12th century is integrated into the masonry of the current church, which owes its present appearance from a series of rebuilding carried out in 1744 and 1826. The internal structure is characterized by majestic eighteenth-century altars. Of particular splendour is the largest one, completed by a front with draperies made of stucco.
At an altar on the right side there is a fresco from the second half of the fifteenth century depicting the venerated Madonna del Soccorso with Saints Sebastian and Nicola da Tolentino.
Behind the main altar is a panel by Michelangelo di Pietro with the Madonna enthroned between Saints Cassiano and Biagio.
San Cassiano a Vico church is a characteristic example of so many other parish churches in the plain of Lucca with a palimpsest of styles where rococo and neo-classical ornamentations conceal an original Romanesque structure.
Eight years had passed since we’d gone to the premiere of our friend Piero Nissim’s Stabat Mater which was set in the splendid great hall of the archbishop’s palace at Lucca. Piero (who I have already mentioned in my post at http://longoio.wordpress.com/2013/10/28/pumpkins-and-puppets/ et.al.) comes from an old-established Jewish family from Livorno. He is a singer, balladeer, puppeteer, author and much more. We had not realised then that he was also a composer on a considerable classical scale.
How wonderful it is that it was this Jewish person who set that most wonderful poem Stabat Mater, about the sorrows of the Virgin Mary at seeing her dead son at the foot of the cross, written by Jacopone da Todi, and that it was the Archbishop of Lucca who provided the setting for its first performance! True ecumenicist thinking here!
Jacopone da Todi, born in Umbria near Perugia, wrote that most moving of verses of which is this English translation:
At the Cross her station keeping,
stood the mournful Mother weeping,
close to her Son to the last.
Through her heart, His sorrow sharing,
all His bitter anguish bearing,
and now at length the sword has passed.
O how sad and sore distressed
was that Mother, highly blest,
of the sole-begotten One.
Christ above in torment hangs,
she beneath beholds the pangs
of her dying glorious Son.
Is there one who would not weep,
whelmed in miseries so deep,
Christ’s dear Mother to behold?
Can the human heart refrain
from partaking in her pain,
in that Mother’s pain untold?
For the sins of His own nation,
she saw Jesus wracked with torment,
all with scourges rent:
She beheld her tender Child,
Saw Him hangs in desolation,
and Till His spirit forth He sent.
O thou Mother! Fount of love!
Touch my spirit from above;
make my heart with thine accord:
Make me feel as thou hast felt;
make my soul to glow and melt
with the love of Christ my Lord.
Holy Mother! Pierce me through,
in my heart each wound renew
of my Saviour crucified:
Let me share with thee His pain,
which for all my sins was slain,
who for me in torments died.
Let me mingle tears with thee,
mourning Him who mourned for me,
all the days that I may live:
By the Cross with thee to stay,
there with thee to weep and pray,
is all I ask of thee to give.
Virgin of all virgins blest!
Listen to my fond request:
let me share thy grief divine;
Let me, to my latest breath,
in my body bear the death
of that dying Son of thine.
Wounded with His every wound,
steep my soul till it hath swooned,
in His very Blood away;
Be to me, O Virgin, nigh,
lest in flames I burn and die,
in His awful Judgment Day.
Christ, when Thou shalt call me hence,
be Thy Mother my defence;
be Thy Cross my victory;
While my body here decays,
may my soul Thy goodness praise,
Safe in Paradise with Thee.
(Translation by Edward Caswall)
As the local parish priest explained in his introduction to the evening’s concert the ‘Stabat Mater’ refers to the fifth of the Seven Sorrows suffered by Christ’s mother. These are:
- The Prophecy of Simeon.
- The Flight into Egypt.
- The Loss of the Child Jesus in the Temple of Jerusalem.
- Mary’s meeting Jesus on the Via Dolorosa.
- The Crucifixion of Jesus on Mount Calvary.
- Jesus is Taken Down from the Cross.
- The Burial of Jesus by Joseph of Arimathea.
The hymn, or sequence, is certainly one of the most powerful of all religious poems and is a meditation on the suffering of Mary, Jesus Christ‘s mother, during that fifth sorrow, her son’s crucifixion. Liturgically, it is sung on the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows which is commemorated on September the 15th.
The Stabat Mater has been set to music by many composers, with the most famous settings being those by Palestrina, Pergolesi, Alessandro Scarlatti and Domenico Scarlatti, Vivaldi, Haydn, Rossini, Poulenc, and Dvořák.
Let me say emphatically that one does not have to be a religious person to be affected by this most poignant of poems. For me it is addressed to all mothers who have lost their sons through disease, war or crime. It is especially and distressingly relevant today when so many mothers have lost their children as a resuIt of the war in Ukraine.
The Stabat Mater is a truly inspirational universal work and it is no wonder that it has influenced the greatest of composers to set it to music. In my collecting passion I have amassed no less than forty-six different version of it and at the moment am listening to Bononcini’s setting, a musician from Modena, who composed his version for Vienna in 1711. My all-time favourite remains Szymanowski’s Polish composition.
Piero Nissim’s version for four voices and organ set Jacopone’s verses in a lyrical, meditative strophic frame and was profoundly felt by both singers and audience.
Nissim performed the Stabat Mater together with Roberta Ceccotti (soprano), Maria Bruno (mezzo-soprano) and Francesco Lombardi (bass). The ensemble was accompanied by Maestro Franco Meoli. In the second part of the evening, pieces by Piero Nissim were performed for one or two voices on spiritual themes and two compositions by the pianist Loredana Bruno with the Beata Vergine Del Soccorso Choir and the participation of the soprano Elisabetta Della Santa. The event was promoted by the Parish of San Cassiano in Vico and by the Brunier Association of Lucca.
After the concert we were able to meet up with Piero Nissim and reminded him that we had attended the premiere of his composition. Piero was pleased and remarked. ‘In that case you’ll probably have noted some improvements since then!’
Holy Week is all about the greatest story, truth, myth, whatever name you like to give to it which surely resounds within the heart of any sentient person, no matter what colour class or creed they may be, who has any pretention of being called human. It is unutterably sad that at this same time the most atrocious war is being waged in which one Christian nation has invaded another Christian one. It is quite beyond any words for me to fully express my sorrow at this greatest tragedy of our present times and I can only join my own grief at what is happening on our own continent with all those who feel the same.