The Ultimate Stabat Mater Website

It’s Friday – the day of the week that we remember Jesus’ Passion and Death – not just during Lent, of course, but year round.

Doing some research, I discovered the Ultimate Stabat Mater website. I really don’t know how I had not run across it before:

Hans van der Velden started collecting Stabat Maters in 1992. After five years, when he owned about 40 Stabat Mater CDs, his partner Hannie van Osnabrugge created the Ultimate Stabat Mater Website with FrontPage.

The site contained all his notes on the composer, the composition, the original Latin text, and the translations. Hans continued his search for Stabat Maters, and regularly updated the site with new composers and translations.

Via the website Hans came into contact with music lovers, musicians, and composers from all over the world who provided him with new information about compositions and translations. The Stabat Mater collection became one of his passions. In his own words:

When I realised, one day, that I owned several CDs with a musical setting of the Stabat Mater I decided to start a real collection. The Spectrum Muziek Lexicon by Theo Willemze named some 15 composers, so this should be not too difficult. It appeared, however, that the number was substantially larger. I now know about some 600 composers, who, (fortunately), have not all been recorded on CD yet. Still, a substantial fraction has been released on CD and my collection grew rapidly. Beside this list of my collection of CDs I have made another list of composers, who as far as I know have not yet been recorded on CD (more than 400).

A collection invites comparing, and that is what I do. I analyse the text and note the differences, as it appears that several variations of the Stabat Mater poem exist. I listen to the music and I try to present the results in an easily surveyable way. This comparison is handicapped by the fact, that, in the field of musical theories, I am illiterate and not even able to read music. Therefore, many of the opinions in this area come from the accompanying CD-inserts. Besides that, I try to give an impression of what I heard. This is, in effect, a question of sense and sensibility. I give a description in words, coloured of course by my own taste, and I give a graphical representation of the piece ..

When Hans died on December 28^th, 2005, he possessed  211 different  Stabat Mater compositions on CD. The final composition he added was by the Polish composer Henryk Mikolaj Górecki. After his death, his spouse continued collecting Stabat Mater compositions and managing the site.

The YouTube Channel

The Instagram Page

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St. Francis de Sales on Fasting

‘As we begin Lent this week, I’ll be reposting condensed versions of previous entries in which I share thoughts on fasting from spiritual masters, from St. Francis de Sales to Dorothy Day.

All of the previous posts are linked here. What I’ll do this week is share briefer versions. Starting with St. Francis:

The whole, original post is here.

To treat of fasting and of what is required to fast well, we must, at the start, understand that of itself fasting is not a virtue. The good and the bad, as well as Christians and pagans, observe it. The ancient philosophers observed it and recommended it. They were not virtuous for that reason, nor did they practice virtue in fasting. Oh, no, fasting is a virtue only when it is accompanied by conditions which render it pleasing to God. Thus it happens that it profits some and not others, because it is not undertaken by all in the same manner.

…The first condition is that we must fast with our whole heart, that is to say, willingly, whole-heartedly, universally and entirely.…

…

This is what the Church wishes to signify during this holy time of Lent, teaching us to make our eyes, our ears and our tongue fast. For this reason she omits all harmonious chants in order to mortify the hearing; she no longer says Alleluia, and clothes herself completely in somber and dark colors. And on this first day she addresses us in these words: Remember, man, that you are dust, and to dust you shall return [Gen. 3:19], as if she meant to say: “Oh man, quit at this moment all joys and merrymaking, all joyful and pleasant reflections, and fill your memory with bitter, hard and sorrowful thoughts. In this way you will make your mind fast together with your body.”

This is also what the Christians of the primitive Church taught us when, in order to spend Lent in a better way, they deprived themselves at this time of ordinary conversations with their friends, and withdrew into great solitude and places removed from communication with people……

The second condition is never to fast through vanity but always through humility. If our fast is not performed with humility, it will not be pleasing to God…

…Follow the community then in all things, said the great St. Augustine. Let the strong and robust eat what is ordered them, keeping the fast and austerities which are marked, and let them be content with that. Let the weak and infirm receive what is offered them for their infirmity, without wishing to do what the robust do. Let neither group amuse themselves in looking to see what this one eats and what that one does not eat, but let each one remain satisfied with what she has and with what is given to her. By this means you will avoid vanity and being particular...

The third condition necessary for fasting well is to look to God and to do everything to please Him..

And as he summarizes:

This is all that I had to tell you regarding fasting and what must be observed in order to fast well. The first thing is that your fast should be entire and universal; that is, that you should make all the members of your body and the powers of your soul fast: keeping your eyes lowered, or at least lower than ordinarily; keeping better silence, or at least keeping it more punctually than is usual; mortifying the hearing and the tongue so that you will no longer hear or speak of anything vain or useless; the understanding, in order to consider only holy and pious subjects; the memory, in filling it with the remembrance of bitter and sorrowful things and avoiding joyous and gracious thoughts; keeping your will in check and your spirit at the foot of the crucifix with some holy and sorrowful thought. If you do that, your fast will be universal, interior and exterior, for you will mortify both your body and your spirit. The second condition is that you do not observe your fast or perform your works for the eyes of others. And the third is that you do all your actions, and consequently your fasting, to please God alone, to whom be honor and glory forever and ever.

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