Stabat Mater Dolorosa

Stabat Mater Dolorosa [Lat.,=the sorrowful mother was standing], 13th-century hymn of the Roman Church attributed to Jacopone da Todi. A prayer meditating on the sorrows of the Virgin Mary in her station at the Cross, it was the liturgical sequence for the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin (Sept. 15 and the Friday before Palm Sunday). It is no longer used on the Friday before Palm Sunday and is optional on Sept. 15, but it continues to be sung at nonliturgical Lenten services. It was not admitted as a liturgical sequence until 1727, and musical settings are more numerous after that date. Among composers who have used the text are Josquin Desprez, Palestrina, Pergolesi, Haydn, Schubert, and Rossini.

Stabat Mater dolorosa. A Latin hymn of unknown date describing the Sorrows of the BVM at the Cross. It came into liturgical use in the later Middle Ages. The many English translations include ‘At the Cross her station keeping’.

Stabat Mater Dolorosa (Lat.). ‘A grief-stricken mother was standing’. Devotional poem about Virgin Mary's vigil by Christ's Cross, used as sequence in RC liturgy since 1727 to plainchant melody. Text once attrib. Jacopo de Benedetti, Among the many comp. settings are those by Palestrina, Pergolesi, Haydn, Rossini, Verdi, Dvořák, Stanford, Szymanowski, Berkeley, Howells, and others.