Giovanni Battista Draghi lived from 4 January 1710 to 16 March 1736 and was best known as Giovanni Battista Pergolesi with Pegola being the town he heralded from. He wrote the Stabat Mater Dolorosa in the last weeks of his life while he was dying at 26 in a monastery from Tuberculosis.
This version is one that is the dearest to my heart. The duets are sung by Margaret Marshall (soprano)
Lucia Valentini Terrani (contralto) and I only remembered it today after many years of being unable to listen to music due to CPTSD (Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and music being one of my triggers.
With France bombing Syria in revenge for the recent “attacks” in Paris and the awful risk of Hollande evoking article 5 of the NATO treaty effectively involving every member/partner state including New Zealand in the atrocities they are about to commit in the name of fighting the war on terrorism I can’t think of a better composition to express my pain than this music written by a dying 26 year old about the pain of the mother of God when here only son dies at the cross. I am not religious but I know it is mostly women who will do the crying while the men do the dying and the killing and I link to Pergolesi’s Stabat mater Dolorosa for all of them. All of womanhood knows what their men are up to and we have lost the power to make them stops and this world will suffer as a consequence.
Please hear the pain of the mother of all mothers and know we know and one day we will make you pay for the lies, the violence, the torture the deaths of our children, no matter what their religion, colour, race.