Musici Ireland

Arvo Pärt ‘Es sang vor langen Jahren’ mezzo-soprano, violin and viola

Libby Croad ‘To Have Body’ from Chronically Hopeful (with voices)

Henry Purcell ‘Music for a while’ soprano & strings

Linda Buckley ‘Fiol’ for string trio

Deborah Pritchard ‘Stabat Mater’ (World Première)

Arvo Pärt ‘Stabat Mater’

This programme centres around two settings of ‘Stabat Mater’ a 13th

century Latin hymn which translates as ‘the mother stood’ depicting the

Virgin Mary’s sorrow as she stood at the foot of the cross as her son Jesus

Christ was crucified. Written in 1985 Pärt’s Stabat Mater is composed in

what he calls his ‘tintinnabuli’ style and bring us back to the liturgical

roots: the purity of the thirteenth century.

Music critic Robert R. Reilly wrote ‘It is not a study in musical archaism, but a

living testimony of belief. This is music to listen to on your knees’.

Deborah Pritchard says of her setting entitled ‘Vision’: ‘The vision was to create

a companion piece to the Pärt, responding to the sublime meaning illuminated in

this 13th century hymn to Mary...... ‘