Library

Pergolesi: Stabat Mater

The library is fortunate to own many significant works including a number of complete facsimiles.

Click below to turn the pages and explore Pergolesi's manuscript Stabat Mater.

Pergolesi: Stabat Mater and Salve Regina

The premature death of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-36) undoubtedly contributed to the romanticising of his posthumous reputation, and to the fame of the work by which he is best remembered, a setting of the Stabat Mater for solo soprano and alto and strings.

Born in Iesi, Pergolesi studied at the Conservatorio dei Poveri di Gesù Cristo in Naples and subsequently spent the remainder of his short life in the city, initially as Maestro di Capella to Prince Ferdinando Colonna Stigliano, and later to the Duke of Maddaloni. In addition to his court duties he wrote regularly for the Teatro S Bartolomeo and played a significant part in the development of Italian comic opera.

Pergolesi never enjoyed robust health and it deteriorated considerably in the latter part of 1735, leading him to move into the Franciscan Monastery in Pozzuoli early in the following year. It was here, not long before his death from tuberculosis on 16 March 1736, that he wrote the Stabat Mater. It was intended as a replacement for Alessandro Scarlatti’s setting (for the same forces), for use at the church of S Maria dei Sette Dolori in Naples, but its expressive ‘galant’ style did not immediately meet with universal approval. It was first published by John Walsh in London in 1749 and has remained popular to this day.

RCM MS 483 contains both the Stabat Mater and Pergolesi’s first, A minor, setting of ‘Salve Regina’ and, on the evidence of its watermark was copied in England, c 1750, perhaps from Walsh’s publication. It later came into the possession of the Italian born double bass player Domenico Dragonetti (1763-1846) who in turn presented it to his friend the composer, organist and editor Vincent Novello.

Novello (1781-1861), organist of the Chapel of the Portuguese Embassy, South Street, London, and founder of the publishing firm that bears his name, was an inveterate annotator and recorded his receipt of ‘this beautiful Copy of Pergolesi’s famous Work’ and his subsequent donation of it to the Sacred Harmonic Society on ‘May-day Morning. 1849’. Given his industry as an editor and his desire to make works available to others, it is surprising that he should not have published an edition of the Stabat Mater himself. Following the dissolution of the Sacred Harmonic Society in 1882 its Library was purchased by a group of benefactors and presented to the RCM on its opening in 1883.