For years the Stabat Mater by Francesco Durante (1684 – 1755) has been on our list of missing CD’s. Durante was a teacher of Pergolesi and a pupil of Alessandro Scarlatti. He was a famous composer. We wondered why is there no recording of his Stabat Mater to be found? The answer turned out to be on the website of Stanford University, California, USA: the score is incomplete.
On this website we discovered the research of Marie-Louise Catsalis, music lecturer at Stanfords, and her students. Curious to get more news, we contacted Catsalis and she immediately sent us more information in a cordial letter.
Catsalis’ research for a missing page started in manuscripts of Durante’s Stabat Mater in the Milan and Paris archives. Unfortunately, none of these sheets contained the elusive page. However, in her own collection at Stanford’s Memorial Library of Music, she found the most complete manuscript. The first pages are by an unknown hand, but most of the manuscript is considered the composer’s autograph. Spring 2014 Catsalis and her students worked on this manuscript as a part of her course Editing and Performing Early Music..
The work involved transcribing the music from its original clefs/handwritten notation and interpreting Durante’s markings. When they looked at this manuscript, they realized that considering the da capo (return to the music of the opening movement) there were only two words of the poem missing. From analyzing the structural and rhythmic flow of the piece, Catsalis was able to supply ten measures to complete the penultimate movement. These measures are taken
internally from the same movement and only slightly modified to fit the rhythm of the remaining words.
We would like to thank Catsalis very much for sending us the recording of the completed Stabat Mater – of the first performance in 300 years! – on Feb. 26, 2015. There are eight students involved in the performance: two editors and six voice students and the Philharmonia Chorale conducted by Bruce Lamott. Please listen to the the recording!
