ORFEÓ CATALÀ GIRLS CHOIR & VESPRES D’ARNADÍ

Ulrike Haller, soprano | Marta Infante, mezzosoprano | Davo Marín and Carme Milán, dancers | Dani Espasa, organ

Marc Rosich, stage director

Buia Reixach, musical director

PROGRAMME

Stabat Mater

“O Virgo Splendens” from the Red Book of Montserrat / Marc-Antoine Charpentier: Salve Regina / Ilse Weber: Wiegala / Giovanni Battista Pergolesi: Stabat Mater / Dillon O’Brian: May you stay in the arms of the Angels / Sarah Quartel: Lux aeterna / Miklós Kocsár: Salve Regina

There is nothing more devastating than the death of a son. This dramatised concert portrays the Virgin Mary at the most difficult time of her life: the crucifixion and death of her son. The 13th-century religious poem written in Latin, Stabat Mater, put to music in about 500 works in the last five centuries, gives its name to the programme that has Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater as its central piece. Other works dedicated to the Virgin also feature in this concert, with songs that pay tribute to all of the world’s mothers who have also suffered and still suffer today the loss of a child, and spend the rest of their lives struggling to imagine a place for them, far from pain.