Brad Gelineau was so kind to inform me about the Stabat Mater by Vivian Fine. She is an American composer. The composition doesn’t use either the Stabat Mater Dolorosa or the Stabat Mater Speciosa, but instead a poem written about 1940 by Józef Wittlin from Poland. He fled Europe from the Nazis, which explains the reference in the poem. The English translation Fine used was done by Joy Davidman. To hear Fine’s composition, follow this link and click on Stabat Mater in the pink Performances-section. The five Songs of Love and War can be downloaded in a zip-file. Stabat Mater is the second part. It is also possible to download the score. The performers are Marlene Walt, soprano, Jennie Shames, violin, Ralph Gomberg, oboe, Stephen Walt, bassoon, Thomas Gauger, percussion, Gilbert Kalish, piano.
Here is the text of the English translation as used by Vivian Fine, which I received from Brad Gelineau:
The grieving mother stood on the square.
Her dead son was hanging there.
In the frightful world the mother stood,
A servant’s kerchief on her head.
She shed no tears, she uttered no cries,
Watched the cold corpse with stone-cold eyes.
Barefoot he dangled in the air,
They had taken his shoes before hanging him there.
The Nazis march in her son’s shoes
On the earth which they misuse.
Earth like the mother, in agony
which like her waits silently.
Stabat mater dolorosa,
Her sons were cut from the gallows tree.
She took them up, she buried her children
In a grave as silent as she.
Stabat Mater, Poland our mother
with her crown of thorns,
by the gallows tree.