Stabat Mater

Grief reveals itself in varied ways, and never more so than the abrupt exchanges of gravity and levity that comprise Poulenc’s Stabat Mater, a 1950 setting of an ancient Catholic hymn, made in response to the death of a friend. Poulenc had initially planned a Requiem but settled instead on what he called a “grand motet” using the time-honoured 13th-century text that depicts the anguish of the Virgin Mary as she stands at the foot of the cross. Poulenc’s route to paradise was wayward but devout, his robust “Parisian sexuality” (as he called it) happily co-existing with deep religious faith and feeding into the music of what became his first substantial work for chorus and orchestra. Lasting half an hour, it features 12 concisely written sections that proceed like a song-cycle with recurring motifs but contrasting moods. It’s mostly serene, austere and meditative in what Poulenc thought of as an old-French style revisited, but explodes into luxuriant sensuality or borderline neurosis. Much of the writing prefigures the anxiety of his later opera Dialogues des Carmélites, from the throbbing, heavy tread of the opening to the dramatic cut-off at the end. But what holds everything together is a sense of spiritual fervour—with the orchestra used sparingly to leave a spotlight on the chorus, the soprano soloist, and words set from the heart.