Traditionally attributed to Jacopone da Todi (died 1306), but possibly the work of an earlier Franciscan, the Stabat mater sequence is assigned to the Feast of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary, celebrated annually on the Friday after Passion Sunday (two weeks before Easter). Having been used in various monastic orders and churches, it became liturgically fixed in 1727, when Pope Benedict XIII extended the feast Septem Dolorum B. V. M. to the whole church. Devotion to the Virgin Mary was deeply rooted in Austrian Catholic culture, and the Habsburg court had observed this feast prior to 1727. Emperors Ferdinand III and Leopold I each composed a Stabat mater setting, and Charles VI visited the Minoritenkirche yearly for a procession on that day. Liturgical practice in the Vienna Hofkapelle scheduled the Stabat mater not only for the new Marian feast, but also for the first four Saturdays in Lent. These occasions created an ongoing need for new Stabat mater settings, and numerous eighteenth-century Austrian composers wrote them, including Fux, Caldara, Wagenseil and Gaßmann, as well as Joseph and Michael Haydn. Reutter composed six between 1741 and 1767. Tuma's (1747) was performed frequently by the Hofkapelle ensemble between 1760 and 1787.
Pergolesi completed his Stabat mater, commissioned by the Brotherhood of the Vergine dei dolori in Naples, in 1736, and it quickly became famous, being widely copied and published. Almost from the beginning, despite harsh criticism from Padre Martini, Forkel and others, a number of musicians (both Catholic and Protestant) considered this piece worthy of recreating in their own arrangements. These arrangements typically involved enlarging the original ensemble, which was criticized by Hiller in the Preface to his own arrangement (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1776) for its ‘limited form’ (‘eingeschränkte Gestalt’). Thus developed a tradition of adapting Pergolesi's chamber work (as Alfred Einstein called it in his edition (London: Eulenburg, 1927)) to oratorio proportions.
The ‘Wiener Version’, presented in this editio princeps by Martin Haselböck, differs from its predecessors in that it is the final product of a series of accretions grafted on by at least three composers over a period of almost half a century (between 1795 and 1843). The sources cited by the editor document the progression of changes and the composers involved: to Pergolesi's original soprano, alto and strings, Joseph von Eybler added men's voices and winds (Harmonie), Ignatz Ritter von Seyfried brought in trombones, and Otto Nicolai introduced his own dynamics and articulation markings. The resulting full scoring consists of two flutes, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, three trombones, strings, organ, SATB solos and SATB choir.
Most of the movements in this ‘Vienna Version’ feature either flute or oboe. These high winds tend to double the violins (sometimes an octave above), but they also contribute independent material, including rhythmic variation over long vocal notes. In solos and duets, they frequently reinforce the voice parts. Bassoons play in all but one of the movements with oboes, typically duplicating the bass strings, sometimes with varied rhythms. Horns appear in the first, eighth and thirteenth movements, adding intermittent sustained notes. Trombones join the ensemble only in the two fully scored choruses ‘Fac ut ardeat’ and the final ‘Amen’, where they primarily fulfil their traditional Viennese role of supporting the three lower choral parts. In general, the added instruments are more prominent in the interludes between choral sections, but they also provide increased rhythmic activity, melodic decoration and textural enrichment during the choral sections.
Probably the most fundamental alteration of Pergolesi's work was the expansion of the vocal ensemble from the original soprano and alto (solos and duets) to include men's voices. In adding the winds, Eybler left intact the composer's string parts. In the case of the vocal treatment, however, he made more substantial changes. Besides converting five movements to four-part chorus, he substituted tenor for soprano and bass for alto in five solo arias or duets. Three movements keep the original vocal scoring; one movement (‘Quae maerebat’) stands entirely unchanged.
Overall, the edition seems to be well done. Sources are clearly described and variant readings listed in a critical report; the editor states that the principal source is nearly free of errors and problems. A one-page Foreword in German and English provides a brief historical background. Here one wishes that Haselböck had given more information. For example, he reports that ‘einige Aufführungen’ took place in Vienna after 1850, citing one in the Karlskirche in 1856. It would be of interest to learn about those ‘several performances’ and also to know where the performance in the Karlskirche is noted. Curiously, although all the sources belonged to the Vienna Hofkapelle archive by 1843, apparently the work was never performed in the imperial chapel. A vocal score and performance parts are available from the publisher.
Users of the edition should be aware that the horn parts are incorrectly notated in two movements. The two horn parts in number 8 were written for ‘Corni in G’, as labelled in the score. Reading the parts in this key will produce wrong notes, however, as they are notated for F horn. The incorrect key signature of two flats only adds to the confusion. A similar contradiction occurs in number 13, where the part is labelled and notated for ‘Corni in F’ but has an inaccurate key signature of F sharp. It is unlikely that these incongruities derive from the original sources, but if they do, they should have been corrected and reported in the critical notes. There are a number of inconsistencies in the edition, including placement of dynamics (variously above and below the instrumental parts), ties (different in relation to stems), whole-bar rests (start or centre of the bar), mistakes in text (for example in no. 2, ‘pretransivit’, recte ‘pertransivit’), wrong pitches (movement 4, bar 8, violins, notes 2–3), misplaced fermatas (movement 5, bar 19, organ) and missing slurs on vocal melismas (movement 8, bar 99, alto). If a second impression is made of this edition, the publisher should correct the repeated misspellings ‘Hofmusikkappelle’ in the English introduction and ‘Männergesangsverein’ (no second ‘s’) in the German one, and should also decide whether the subtitle of the work is ‘Wiener Version’ (as it appears on the cover and inside title page) or ‘Wiener Fassung’ (on the first page of the score).
The principal source, dated 1831, has a title that credits two further composers for their contributions. It reads in part: ‘Stabat mater / von Pergholese [sic] / Vierstimmig gesetzt von Salieri / Mit Harmoniebegleitung v. Süßmayer’. The editor dismisses these attributions as ‘mysteriously false’. It would have been helpful to know if this title (entered on the cover of the volume) is in the same hand as one of the music copyists or was made by a different scribe. While it is possible that a busy or misinformed copyist erred in these ascriptions, it is also conceivable that he may have had some basis for the names he gave. Salieri knew Pergolesi's Stabat mater well, having directed a performance in the Italian Church (Minoritenkirche) in 1777, and he is known to have revised music by earlier composers.
Historically, the ‘Wiener Version’ of Pergolesi's Stabat mater is important as it testifies to the enduring popularity of the original composition, and, like Mozart's orchestration of Messiah, it exemplifies how changing tastes ‘modernized’ the work of a past master. Joseph Haydn's Stabat mater (1767) underwent a similar transformation in 1803, when Sigismund Neukomm, with the composer's approval, expanded the winds from two oboes to include flute, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, three trombones and timpani. But this ‘Wiener Version’ is more than just a curiosity. Unlike Handel's oratorio or Haydn's cantata, Pergolesi's sequence setting was controversial from the beginning, condemned by its critics as lightweight and nothing more than opera buffa fare. Perhaps owing to these contentions, it lived on almost as much in its ‘improved’ versions as in its original form. By bringing this nineteenth-century adaptation to light, the editor has made an important contribution to its Rezeptionsgeschichte and given choral directors the opportunity to present a ‘new’ oratorio.
