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In June of this year, the Galway Baroque Singers and the RTE Concert Orchestra will perform the Irish premiere of Karl Jenkins' new work,
Stabat Mater.
The powerful and moving words of the Stabat Mater, which deals with the suffering of Mary during the crucifixion of Christ, has been set to music by many composers, but Jenkins' is a new approach.
Jenkins interpolates the Latin sacred texts with settings of sympathetic poetry. The themes of weeping, desolation and prayer, as Mary sees her son on the cross, are reflected in Persian and ancient Babylon texts translated into English by poet Grahame Davies, a lament by Carol Barratt, and the hymn Ave Verum Corpus.
The composer writes: "I tend to look outside the purely western European tradition for inspiration and freshness, so apart from setting the religious text I have also included words by ancient writers from what is now the Middle-East."
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