Haydn’s setting of the Stabat mater, which he composed in 1767, is relatively rarely performed nowadays, but during his lifetime it became one of his most popular and widely disseminated works, performed on a regular basis both in its liturgical context and in the concert hall. It was published no fewer than three times—in London in 1784, Paris in 1785 and Germany in 1803—and contemporaneous manuscript copies survive in France, Holland, Germany, Austria, Spain, Portugal and South America.

The Stabat mater dolorosa is a thirteenth-century prayer, written in the first-person singular, expressing a deeply felt compassion for the mother of Christ as she stands by the cross on which her son hangs. Haydn would have been familiar with the famous setting by Pergolesi (1736) and probably also with that by Alessandro Scarlatti (1724), and as a boy chorister at St Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna he would have sung the version by Palestrina, which dates from the late sixteenth century.

In its liturgical context the Stabat mater was designed to be performed on Good Friday and on the Feast of the Seven Sorrows in September, and Haydn’s setting would first have been performed at the Esterházy Palace in Eisenstadt on one of these two days in 1767. Haydn was seemingly pleased with the work, for he sent a score to the composer Johann Adolph Hasse, an act which the following year led to him requesting a brief leave of absence from his duties in Eisenstadt to supervise a performance of the work in Vienna. 'You will recall', he wrote, 'that last year I set to music with all my might the highly esteemed hymn called Stabat mater, and that I sent it to the great Hasse, celebrated across the world, with no intention other than that, in case in one or two places I had not adequately set words of such great import, this lack could be rectified by a master so successful in all forms of music. Contrary to my merits, however, this unique artist honoured the work with inexpressible praise, and wished nothing more than to hear it performed with the good players it requires.'

The work was duly given its Viennese premiere at the church of the Barmherzige Brüder in March 1768, and a second Viennese performance was mounted at the Piaristenkirche in March 1771. In 1803 Haydn supervised a performance of the piece at Eisenstadt for which his student Sigismund Neukomm provided additional parts for flute, clarinets, bassoons, horns, trumpets, trombones and timpani. The original setting of the work, however, was scored for an orchestra of just two oboes and strings—alongside the choir and four vocal soloists—and it gains immeasurably from the resultant intimacy and introspection.

Haydn’s thirteen movements are carefully constructed to alternate five choruses with seven solo arias and a duet, but the monothematic nature of the text means that he is less able to create contrasts of tonality and tempo. Six movements are set entirely in a minor key, as is the opening section of the final chorus, while eight of the movements have slow tempo markings, ranging from Andante to Largo assai. One of the most expressive and heartfelt numbers in the work is the aria 'Fac me vere tecum flere'—set in G minor and tellingly marked Lagrimoso—in which the accompanying violins interweave empathetically with the long-spun vocal line while oboes wail dolorously above a throbbing bass-line. The results make one wonder what the results might have been had Haydn, like his younger brother Michael, composed a Requiem.

from notes by Ian Page © 2020