Stabat Mater, Op. 58

Composer: DVOŘÁK, Antonín

Note: older editions of Dvořák’s works may list this piece as Op. 28. For more on the inconsistency of opus numbers in Dvořák, visit this page. 

  • Dvořák worked on this this composition between February 19, 1876 and November 13, 1877.1
  • This work premiered in Prague on December 23, 1880, in a performance by the Prague Provisional Theatre Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Adolf Čech.2
  • Though the Stabat Mater poem is a liturgical text, Dvořák wrote this piece specifically for concert performance, not for liturgical use; this was a pretty common practice in the 19th century (cf. Verdi’s Requiem and Rossini’s Stabat Mater).3
  • Dvořák began work on this piece while he was working as organist of the Church of St. Vojtěch (he worked there from 1874-1877). This, and his thorough education in liturgical Latin from the Prague Organ School, likely gave him a special interest in setting Catholic sacred texts.4
  • It is possible that Dvořák chose to set this sorrowful text due to circumstances in his family life. He began work on the piece a few months after the death of his daughter Josepha in 1875 (she was only two days old when she died), and he returned to the work in October of 1877, soon after two more of his children (Ruzena and Otakar) had passed away.5
    • This article discusses the possibility that the Stabat Mater was influenced by the death of Dvořák’s children; it also includes quotations from Dvořák’s letters about performances of the Stabat Mater. 
  • Dvořák divided the 13th-century Stabat Mater text into movements at his own discretion. Click here for a breakdown of movement titles and scoring. 

Sources

  1. Klaus Döge, “Dvořák, Antonín,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed March 24, 2022, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000051222.
  2. “Stabat Mater, Op. 58 (Dvořák, Antonín),” IMSLP, accessed March 24, 2022, https://imslp.org/wiki/Stabat_Mater%2C_Op.58_(Dvo%C5%99%C3%A1k%2C_Anton%C3%ADn).
  3. Döge, “Dvořák, Antonín,” Grove Music Online.
  4. Ibid.
  5. Ibid.

Cut IDs

22047 49481 49482