Ferko: Stabat Mater. His Majestie's Clerkes. Cedille Records CDR 90000 051.(Review)

Ferko: Stabat Mater. His Majestie's Clerkes. Cedille Records CDR 90000 051.

The idea of a creating a new musical setting for the Stabat Mater is not really new. It has been done often over the years since the Latin hymn was first written in the 13th century. Composer Frank Ferko's rendition enjoys its world premiere recording on this Cedille disc. The original Latin texts commemorating the sorrows of the Virgin Mary are interspersed with English interpolations of passages from Luke 2:34-35, Euripides's The Trojan Women, Padraic Pearse's "the Mother," Charlotte Mayerson's "The Death Cycle Machine," and Sally M. Gall's "Elegy." As the interpolations suggest, Ferko analogizes Mary's grief over the loss of her Son with the modern heartache of parents losing children to war, drugs, suicide, and hatred. The Stabat Mater takes ...