Dialogues on Stabat Mater

My Dialogues on Stabat Mater for Violin, Viola and Chamber Orchestra is based on Pergolesi's famous work, with contemporary interludes - musical dialogues - as prayers, commentaries, personal reactions to the movements - modern souls as affected by the Stabat Mater. It is also a dialogue of Past and Present, between the prayer and the transformation created by it - a personal connection to the Stabat Mater from the view of our own time.
Dialogues on Stabat Mater is an experiment. I wished to create a frame, a dialogue, an outlook from our own time on the same subject as Pergolesi's celebrated masterpiece. And to base this dialogue not so much on the differences of cultural and harmonic esthetics between the 18th and 21st centuries, but rather on their similarities, which is much more challenging. The image of the grieving mother is universal, just as pain is universal, although its expressions may vary based on cultural or religious backgrounds.
A dialogue can happen at different levels. Is it a dialogue between different times, a beginning and an end, musician and audience, soli and tutti, loneliness and understanding? Perhaps, after all, the difference is not that great between vocal and purely instrumental, sacred language and the vernacular, monologue, and dialogue? Any prayer is a dialogue even though the addressee may not appear present. To whom am I addressing this?
(Lera Auerbach)