Richard Strauss, "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks"

The German Rogue

Till Eulenspiegel is a character from German folklore, a rogue who, unlike his Latin congeners, seems to have really existed. It is said that he was born around 1300, growing up in contact with the lower classes of German feudal society. A tireless globetrotter, he traveled throughout the Holy Roman Empire, mocking everyone, kings or vassals. Sentenced to death on more than one occasion, he would have escaped them all to finally die because of the Bubonic Plague that ravaged Europe during the 14th century.

The stories of Till's adventures became legendary. In 1890 a new, beautifully illustrated account of his adventures appeared, which caught the attention of a young Richard Strauss, only twenty-five years old.

The young Richard had been appointed assistant conductor of the Munich opera at the age of twenty-two, and in the early 1890s, he was in Weimar as conductor of the Weimar Theater. And only recently, in 1889, he had premiered his first great masterpiece, the symphonic poem Don Juan, hailed by audiences and critics alike in Weimar, and later the world.

But, in the case of Till, his first idea was to make him the hero of an opera. He went so far as to write a libretto: the stories were at hand.

Richard Strauss (1864 - 1949)

But he soon abandoned the idea, perhaps moved by the success of Don Juan, opting for the composition of a purely instrumental symphonic poem, which would tell the story, the adventures of Till, in music, which did not seem at all simple if we remember that the most common amusement of the German rogue was to pretend not to understand what is spoken to him, taking literally the figurative expressions of his interlocutor, to make fun of him.

But the decision was a happy one. Written for a large orchestra between 1894 and 1895, the work had its premiere and warm reception on November 5, 1896, in Cologne.

"Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks", tone poem, opus 28
The structure of the work is generally based on the rondo form. The central theme goes with Till's personality, and his adventures as episodes that appear between one and another repetition of the central theme, or the other themes. The clarinet, alternating with the horn, represents Till Eulenspiegel.

Lasting approximately fifteen minutes, Till's antics, told in music, unfold according to the following steps: Introducing the character / Till's antics / The trial / Sentence and execution / Epilogue.

As we can appreciate, the German antics end badly.

The version is by the WDR Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Semyon Bychkov.

Beethoven: "Choral Fantasy"

A pre-cursor to his Ninth Symphony

On December 22, 1808, a monumental concert was held in the recently opened Theater an der Wien in Vienna. For his own benefit, Beethoven organized an evening of his own works in which he would perform as a pianist and conductor. The works to be presented required the participation of a full orchestra, choirs, soloists, and piano. The program included no less than the simultaneous premieres of the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies and the Piano Concerto No. 4. In addition, excerpts from the Mass in C minor were performed, and as usual, a couple of arias were sung.

To conclude the evening of this memorable four-hour concert "in a cold and unpleasant theater", Beethoven opted for a brilliant finale that should fuse all the musical components of the evening – orchestra, choirs, and piano – in the same work. The genre chosen was the Fantasy.

A cold and unpleasant venue.
The concert indeed took place under disastrous conditions, due to the prevailing cold, the length of the concert, and the fact that the orchestra's performance was calamitous, as its members had been hastily assembled and had only one rehearsal. To make matters worse, the Bonn maestro had decided on his "grand finale" only a fortnight before.

The Fantasy for piano, choirs, and orchestra, also called Choral Fantasy, was composed in the second half of December, an unusually short time by the maestro's standards. So, a possible error in its performance was highly probable. And this is how J.F. Reichard tells it, in his Selected Letters, written on a trip to Vienna.

"Finally, a long Fantasia, with the intervention of the piano, the orchestra, and, finally, the choir. This strange and interesting idea had a desolating manifestation in the performance, for the orchestra fell into such a state of complete bewilderment that Beethoven, possessed by the artist's fire, forgot his audience and those around him and rose from the piano shouting, "Stop, stop and start again from the beginning!" You can imagine how all of us present suffered for him. At that moment, I even wished I had dared to leave the theater much earlier...".

What had happened? The maestro had agreed with the concertmaster that a certain piece was to be played without the repetitions. But at the time, Beethoven forgot his own suggestion and repeated the parts while the orchestra went the other way. It is also said that it was the concertmaster who stopped the performance and who reportedly asked Beethoven: "With repetitions this time?  to which the maestro replied positively.

Fantasia for piano, choirs and orchestra, opus 80
The work, dedicated to King Maximilian Joseph of Bavaria, is conceived in two parts of unequal length: an Adagio (initiated by an improvised piano solo cadenza of 26 bars) and a Finale formed by several sections of different tempo: allegro, meno allegro, allegro molto, adagio ma non tropo, marcia, allegro, allegretto, presto.

The theme developed – universal brotherhood through the meeting of the arts – is quite similar to that of Schiller's Ode to Joy, which took its final form in the finale of the Ninth Symphony. The texts, by the poet Christoph Kuffner, are also similar, as is the choral treatment.

Beethoven was aware of the kinship of the two works. In a letter of 1824, when he was writing the Ninth Symphony, he described his project as "an arrangement of the words of Schiller's immortal Ode to Joy, in the same manner as my fantasia with piano and chorus, but on a much larger scale."

The work lasts just over twenty minutes.

The Singapore Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Andrew Litton, performs this version.
At the piano, Malaysian piano wunderkind Tengku Irfan.

Chopin, Waltz Opus 34 No 2

Chopin was 19 years old when he traveled for the first time to Vienna, in August 1829, to give his first recital as a concert pianist abroad. The success was apotheosis, although some critics resented the interpreter's low volume and weak sonority, more appropriate for salons than for a concert hall. A year later, after leaving Warsaw for good on a trip to Paris, he spent eight months in the capital of the Austrian Empire, with opposite results. Music impresarios and other artists received him with indifference. During that extended stay, he gave only two recitals. With his delicate touch, it was not easy to conquer the boisterous Viennese public, an audience that, according to him: "...only wants to listen to the waltzes of Lanner and Strauss".

Chopin, of course, was completely alien to the Viennese waltzes. Sometime later, already installed in Paris, he commented to a friend: "I have not acquired anything of that which is particularly Viennese, so I am still unable to play waltzes". Perhaps precisely for this reason, Chopin would reinvent the form in his own particular terms, with an exquisite production of short pieces with 3/4 meter, deeply personal.
According to scholars, his production of waltzes basically follows two lines: on the one hand, there are the grandiose, brilliant, and ornamental, almost elaborated for the ballroom; and on the other, there are the miniatures, abstract, charming, at the antipodes of the fashionable Viennese waltz of the time.

The three waltzes of Opus 34
Composed between the years 1834 and 1838, they were published by the editor with the title of Three Brilliant Waltzes, although the denomination is only adequate for the first of them, the waltz Opus 34 No 1, in A flat, the only grandiose and brilliant, thus placing it in the first category established by the scholars, and the two remaining ones, in the second (and it could not be otherwise if the waltz Op 34 No 3 is popularly known as "the Waltz for a Kitten").
The year 1838 is the year of Chopin's departure to Majorca, the ill-fated trip he will make with George Sand and her children, in October of that year. Before setting out on the voyage, Chopin sent for publication the four mazurkas of Opus 33 and the three waltzes of Opus 34. By that stage of his life, at the age of 28, Chopin had written, but not published, eight of his fourteen waltzes.

Waltz Opus 34 No 2
Written in A minor, it was Chopin's favorite, as well as others (the movie The Pianist incorporated it into its soundtrack). Although it bears the No. 2, it was the first to be written.

It is a slow, somewhat sad, melancholy waltz. A "waltz for the souls", as Robert Schumann once remarked of Chopin's waltzes. Never better said, precisely, of this waltz.
Full of languor and longing, at minute 0:56 the change to major mode gives way to a melody of surprising beauty that will be repeated in minor mode a few bars later. Everything resumes again, to give way to a new section, at 4:10. At the end, the opening bars will return, this time to serve as a stifled conclusion.

The performance is by the superb Ukrainian pianist Valentina Lisitsa.

Shostakovich's Ninth Symphony

"I was supposed to write an apotheosis of Stalin. I simply could not..."

Only a few months had passed since the end of World War II when Dmitri Shostakovich's Ninth Symphony was premiered in Leningrad on November 3, 1945. It came as a significant surprise to critics and authorities, who had expected the conclusion of a trilogy of "war symphonies" beginning with the grandiose Seventh (entitled "Leningrad") and continuing with the powerful and somber Eighth. The Ninth's scant twenty-five minutes and its simple, even playful character stunned everyone. According to a prominent Russian musicologist, Shostakovich would have confessed to him:

"...they wanted from me a fanfare, an ode, a majestic Ninth... I doubt if Stalin ever questioned his own genius or greatness. And when the war against Hitler was won, he came out of his depths, like a frog swelling to the size of an ox ... and now I was supposed to write an apotheosis of Stalin. I simply could not ... My stubbornness cost me dearly."

However, the public gave him a good reception. This was not the case for the Nomenklatura, who expected this time a great hymn to victory with soloists and choirs singing verses taken from texts by Lenin or Stalin. And Shostakovich thought this way, at some point. But, who knows if out of annoyance, he ended up writing "a cheerful little work," adding that "the musicians will love to play it, and the critics will delight in tearing it to pieces."

Shostakovich, in 1950
(1906 - 1975)

It was not the first time the teacher had faced disapproval from the authorities. Less than ten years ago he had been accused of "bourgeois formalism" and "anti-Sovietism". The new reproach, "writing music contrary to the spirit of the Soviet people," would lead to the composer being blacklisted three years later, in 1948, and forced to write only music for the cinema. He was "rehabilitated" in 1953, after Stalin's death the previous year. 

Symphony No. 9, in E-flat major, opus 70
Structured in five short movements (the last three of which are played without interruption), the work is written for a small, modest, "classical" orchestra. During the six weeks it took him to create it, Shostakovich spent his spare time playing arrangements of classical symphonies on the piano four hands with a colleague, so the influence is plain... the Ninth Symphony exhibits a kind of affinity with Haydn's proverbial classicism, though the harmonies are decidedly different.
Stalin was not amused with it. But Shostakovich was right: musicians like to play it. The Ninth is one of the most performed works in the modern Russian repertoire.

Movements:
00:00  Allegro
06:21  Moderato - Adagio
14:23  Presto - Largo - Allegretto

The hr-Sinfonieorchester – Frankfurt Radio Symphony, conducted by the young British conductor Nicholas Collon.∙

Felix Mendelssohn, "Spring Song"

The songs without words story

Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy is one of the many composers of the 19th century whose life was cut short before his fortieth birthday. A blessed musician born into a wealthy Jewish family who was able to embark on three-year study tours before the age of twenty, he died in Leipzig at the age of thirty-eight. At that time, he was music director in Düsseldorf, had charge of the Berlin School of Arts music department, founded the Leipzig Conservatory, and wrote symphonies and concertos, oratorios and chamber music, and solo piano pieces. In this last field, it can be said that he even invented a genre, the Songs Without Words, a kind of lied with no lyrics, later continued by other authors, such as Alkan, Rubinstein, or Grieg.

Between 1829 and 1845, Mendelssohn wrote 36 short piano pieces, less than five minutes long in ABA structure (song-like). They are included in six volumes of six pieces each, to which were added two more published posthumously. They were part of the growing enthusiasm for the piano among the middle classes of Europe in the first half of the romantic 19th century, and they were readily incorporated into the repertoires of pianists of the most diverse abilities, thus proving incredibly popular, which led some critics of the time to downplay them.

Felix Mendelssohn (1809 - 1847)

Songs Without Words
Felix Mendelssohn (1809 - 1847)The term used to denote them is apparently Mendelssohn's own invention. His sister Fanny wrote in 1828: "My birthday was very pleasant... Felix has given me one of his 'songs without words' for my album, and has written some more."
The little works accompanied the author's entire life as if they were entries in a musical diary. There are some joyful, or dreamy, and there are also melancholic, or dramatic. Such expressive range stems from Mendelssohn's own definition, which, in his words, he pointed out to a friend:

"If you ask me what I had in mind when I wrote it, I would say: just the song as it is. And if I have certain words in mind for one or another of these songs, I would never want to say them to anyone, because the same words never mean the same thing to others. Only the song can say the same thing, can arouse the same feelings in one person as in another, feelings that are not expressed, however, with the same words."

"Spring Song" - Song Without Words No 30, opus 62 No 6, in A Major
Some pieces bear titles, usually added by the publishers, although five belong to the author. This is the case of the Song Without Words No. 30, from the fifth volume, called "Spring Song," which we present here in the rendition of the Greek pianist Marios Panteliadis.
Characteristic of the piece is a figure of five leaping eighth notes, which are repeated in the manner of a symphonic development.

Schumann, Third Symphony, "Rheinische"

The Maestro's Last Symphony, 1851

In 1850, Robert Schumann had been happily married to Clara for ten years. They had six children and Clara worked intensively touring Europe with piano recitals. However, the hallucinations that would lead him to throw himself into the Rhine River four years later had already begun. But in March of that year, he was offered the position of musical director in Düsseldorf. He did not decide immediately. The maestro had some apprehensions, for he had not forgotten his friend Mendelssohn's opinions about the level of musicians in that city. And he did not show great confidence in his own abilities, as well.

A fortunate trip to Cologne, just up the Rhine river from Düsseldorf, in the company of Clara, changed his mind. The magnificent Gothic cathedral thrilled him. Some time later, he would be an astonished witness to an enthusiastic procession accompanying the festivities to dignify the city's new cardinal. There, in Düsseldorf, a fantastic city, he would compose his Third Symphony, called "Rhenish", during November and December 1850.

Schumann, in 1850
(1810 - 1856)

Music director remotion
Actually, Schumann did not do much as a music director in Düsseldorf. The maestro, it seems, was not a good conductor, did not excel on the podium, and soon earned the musicians' resistance. He was removed from his post at the end of that year. But in the field of composition, in addition to the Third Symphony, he could finish the Concerto for cello and orchestra, and a couple of other important works.

Rhineland
The sounds, scenery, and aromas of the lands near the Rhine (the Rhineland) were a great influence on the character and color of the "Rhineland" Symphony. And the title chosen, whether by Schubert or the audiences, or the publishers, reflects the nationalistic sympathies of the time —the Rhine, a potent national symbol, in an imagined Germany made up of a loose confederation of German-speaking duchies.
Likewise, Schubert will write in German the tempo indications of the symphony's five movements.

Symphony in E-flat major, "Rheinische", opus 97
Four symphonies were written by the maestro in his lifetime. The third is the last, for the Fourth Symphony was begun and completed earlier but published much later. It was premiered, with the maestro on the podium, in February 1851. The reception, unfortunately, was not as warm as the two previous symphonies had been. Even so, its melodic, almost folkloric character earned it, subsequently, public appreciation, obeying the unanimous opinion that it is one of Robert Schumann's most brilliant and optimistic symphonic works.

Movements:
00:00  Lebhaft ∙ ( vividly) A powerful theme, syncopated, with fanfare character.
09:10  Scherzo. Sehr mäßig ∙ (very calm) A more rustic character with länder (land) style themes.
15:57  Nicht schnell ∙ (not too fast) Lyrical, sort of intermezzo between scherzo and 4th Mov.
21:14  Feierlich ∙ (solemn) "Accompanying a solemn ceremony" (the opening title).
26:16  Lebhaft - Schneller ∙ (lively - fast) As powerful and happy as the opening movement. Fanfares from the brass and crescendos from the strings lead to a grandiose finale.

The rendition is by the hr-Sinfonieorchester (Frankfurt Radio Symphony), conducted by Marek Janowski.

Beethoven, Piano Sonata No 31, Op. 110

The last piano works by a deaf composer

When Beethoven wrote his last three sonatas, his deafness was total and irremissible. The only means of communication was his now famous "conversation notebooks", in which those who accompanied him had to write down what they wanted to say to the maestro, to which Beethoven replied verbally or in writing, depending on his mood. His temperament, already suspicious and intolerant, became irritable and bellicose. It is also the time when he struggles for the affection of his nephew Karl, whose legal custody he has gained after the death of his brother Kaspar in 1815.

 
Nevertheless, in 1818 he was able to successfully tackle the enormous challenge of the Hammerklavier Sonata. And in 1820 – a period in which his poor health led him to a state of almost prostration, writing long letters to his friends telling them about the loss of his creative abilities – he will begin, however, the composition of his final triptych in the sonata genre. In 1820, 1821, and 1822 he tackled, consecutively, the composition of the sonatas opus 109, 110, and 111, the last ones.

Beethoven (1770 - 1827) in 1823

"Feeling a new life..."
Beethoven alternated all this work with the composition of the Missa Solemnis and the resolution of the finale of the Ninth Symphony. The work bore fruit. At the dawn of the year 1821, when he began the composition of the Sonata opus 110, the central work of the triptych, he announced to his friends he was "feeling a new life", although his nephew Karl, who lived next to him, continued to be miserly in his affection. His financial situation was no better; there is no letter from those years in which money problems are not mentioned, in one way or another.

Sonata No. 31 in A-flat major, op. 110
Although somewhat overshadowed by the mighty Hammerklavier and the last, the sonata opus 111, it is as grand and imposing as those two, especially the finale fugue, second only to the Grosse Fuge of 1825-26. It is constructed in four movements (although some scholars consider the adagio and fugue a single movement). The finished autograph score bears the date December 25, 1821. For this sonata, the publishers paid Beethoven 30 ducats in January 1822.

Movements:
00:00  Moderato cantabile molto espressivo - An intimate and spiritual beginning.
07:31  Allegro molto - Brief and jovial section.
09:52  Adagio, ma non troppo - Very somber, almost funereal. Perhaps a reflection of the maestro's moods, for the moment.
13:55  Fugue: Allegro, ma non tropo / L'istesso tempo di arioso / Fugue - Begins without pause after the Adagio. It is a serene and expressive theme, perhaps the composer's acceptance of fate.

The performance is by Daniel Barenboim.

Mozart, "A musical joke", K. 522

A good-natured banter from Wolfgang Amadeus

We sincerely believe that Mozart would not have laughed much at the portrayal of him in the film Amadeus. However, we know that he had a robust sense of humor, documented in his letters; and from his compositions, as well, we know that he displayed an equally robust sense of humor in them. In the divertimento known as "A Musical Joke," from 1787, Mozart created a parody of what might have been the work of an unseasoned composer, an inept composer. The piece, therefore, is riddled with awkward moments, crude resolutions, or untraditional accompaniments. The purpose is clearly satirical, although there is no record of Mozart ever revealing that this was his intention.

We also know that Wolfgang was capable of quickly overcoming difficulties and that every time he did so, it was through musical creation, where there was no lack of joyful moments even if the previous events had not been exactly encouraging. And, precisely, the "musical joke" is the first piece incorporated into his personal catalog after the death of his father, although Mozart had already been thinking about it for two years. The other divertimento that accompanies the "joke" in the catalog, incorporated the same summer, also arouses curiosity: the celebrated Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. It is difficult to imagine another two pieces with such opposite purposes and destinies.

The "antics"
The divertimento is crude and mechanical, with passages designed to mimic what would happen with inaccurate or wrong notation or technically clumsy playing. Written for two horns and strings, the horn players are expected to do as they please; thus, in performances it is customary for them to be "ejected" from the stage during the third movement, only to see them return contrite in the fourth and final movement.
But most of the "chascarros" are only understood by musicologists or similar, also because in their time they were destined to the ears of those who had known and listened to poorly gifted contemporary authors of Mozart, as there were some. Researchers also point out a very early use of polytonality, which, who knows if it was, at the time, nothing more than just another "chascarro".

Divertimento for two horns and strings in F major, K. 522
As already tersely noted, the work is written for two horns, two violins, viola, and cello. As for the German title, Ein Musikalischer Spaß, it should be noted that the word Spaß does not necessarily connote a jocular intent. One musicologist has suggested that a more appropriate translation would be: A musical amusement, precisely what a divertimento is intended to be. It is structured in four movements lasting about twenty minutes.

Movements:
00:00  Allegro
03:00  Menuetto and Trio. Maestoso
10:50  Adagio cantabile
15:20  Presto

The performance is by a chamber ensemble from the National Youth Orchestra of Canada.

Gabriel Fauré, Piano Suite "Dolly"

A pretty piece for an old love's daughter

Considered "dangerously modern", the French composer Gabriel Fauré was turned down for the post of professor of composition at the Paris Conservatoire when it became vacant in 1892. But he was offered another position: inspector of music schools in the French provinces. Fauré was almost fifty years old, and married, so, the position suited him well as it provided him with a steady income. He could then give up the private lessons he gave to poorly endowed pupils, but it also meant he had to embark on long journeys across the country. He had been married for less than ten years to Marie Fremiet. The marriage got along conveniently well but Marie began to resent the frequent travels, and as, it is said, Gabriel was very sensitive to female beauty, it was not long before he set his eyes on a new companion.

Meeting Emma
During the 1880s, Fauré wrote songs and short pieces for piano, but he felt insecure about tackling compositions of greater relevance. Slowly, however, his works began to show greater harmonic complexity and melodic lines. It would be in the next decade, inspecting in the provinces the paths along which French music was marching when the author would find his own way. It was precisely in those years that he met the cultivated singer and brilliant conversationalist Emma Bardac.

Emma Bardac (1862 - 1934)

Yes, indeed. Emma Bardac is the second wife of Claude Debussy, whom Emma accompanied until his death in 1918. But in 1890 she was still the happy wife of a banker and remained so, intermittently until she met Debussy. In the meantime, she fell under the spell of Gabriel Fauré who, unlike Debussy, had no intention of abandoning his wife, Marie. They remained good friends (he had two children with her), and Fauré, from wherever his travels took him, would send Marie affectionate letters almost every day.

Gabriel Fauré (c. 1889)
(1845 - 1924)

But Fauré had fallen in love with Emma. For the first time, at almost 50 years of age, he was experiencing a passionate relationship that satisfied him entirely. According to scholars, the affair would have provoked an explosion of creativity in Fauré, as evidenced by a famous song cycle for voice and piano on verses by Verlaine, La Bonne Chanson, opus 61, and the delightful piano suite "Dolly".

"Dolly" Suite for piano four hands, op 56
Emma had a daughter, Helena, called "Dolly", in the family. The six short piano pieces that make up the suite are dedicated to her. Composed between 1893 and 1896, they are intended to celebrate birthdays and other family events in little Dolly's life. Contrary to his custom, Fauré gave the pieces descriptive names: Berceuse - Mi-a-ou - Le Jardin de Dolly - Kitty-valse - Tendresse - Le pas espagnol. The most popular of these is the first, Berceuse, which for years accompanied a famous BBC program in Great Britain.

Thus, Emma Bardac added a first musical gift to one of her daughters. Later will come the cycle Children's Corner, by Debussy, dedicated this time to Chouchou, the nickname of Claude-Emma, their daughter.

The performance is by the Dutch brothers Lucas and Arthur Jussen. In about ten minutes, they perform four of the six pieces that make up the suite:

00:00  Berceuse
03:06  Mi-a-ou
05:02  Le Jardin de Dolly
07:39  Pas Espagnole

Rossini, "Stabat Mater" - Finale

The last years of the master

When the opera William Tell premiered in Paris in August 1829, Gioacchino Rossini was the most famous composer in the world. He was 37 years old.
But that would be his last opera. After the premiere, he took his wife – the dramatic soprano Isabella Colbran – by the arm and went with her to Bologna for a well-deserved vacation. His next engagement with the Paris Opera was scheduled for 1831, so there was nothing to worry about. What no one imagined, not even he himself, was that he would not write another opera for the rest of his life. Rossini was retiring from the stage for good. For the next forty years, the maestro's most famous creations would be, in gastronomy, the turnedos Rossini, and in sacred music, the Stabat Mater.

Rossini's retirement, so early in his long life, is unparalleled in the history of music to this day. Long afterward, it was learned that even while working on William Tell he had considered abandoning his career as an opera composer. Before the premiere, he negotiated with the French government for an annual pension for life, in exchange for writing four operas for the Paris Opera. But after the events of 1830 that deposed Charles X, the potential agreement was definitively canceled. Rossini remained in Paris for a while, weighing the situation. His opera career was over. The maestro never spoke on the subject, but in 1860, eight years before his death, he said, "I decided I had something better to do: to remain silent."

Stabat Mater, the origins
In 1831, Rossini traveled to Spain. He stayed in Madrid for ten days during which he met Manuel Fernández Varela, a state official and great admirer of Rossini, who desired to have a manuscript of the maestro and a Stabat Mater to rival Pergolesi's very famous Stabat Mater. At first, the maestro did not like the idea at all, but finally agreed, on the condition that the manuscript would never be published or sold. Back in Paris, and lacking inspiration, Rossini gave much of the work to a friend, Giovanni Padolini, director of the Italian Theater in Paris. The premiere of the work, half Rossini, half Padolini, took place on Good Friday 1833 in a monastery in Madrid. But in 1837 Fernández Varela died and the work was sold to a publisher, and then published. Rossini panicked.

"Updating" the  work
The scandal would be enormous if it became known that the work did not belong entirely to him. After several vicissitudes, the maestro managed to recover the manuscript. He sat down to rewrite Padolini's work and added new sections, adding a great new finale.

The "updated" Stabat Mater was premiered to great acclaim in Paris on January 7, 1842, thirteen years after Rossini's last Parisian premiere. Three "numbers" had to be repeated and Rossini's name was chanted by an ecstatic crowd.
Maestro Rossini had earned his fame in the craft of popular spectacle, but he was also capable of creating music that was undeniably serious, profound, and transcendent.

Stabat Mater - Finale - "Amen in sempiterna saecula"
The work is a musicalization, a solemn setting to music of the 13th-century Catholic verses, collectively called Stabat Mater, attributed to Pope Innocent III, which describe the sorrow of the Virgin Mary in the presence of the crucified Jesus, and which begin with the words Stabat Mater dolorosa (the Mother was suffering). The verses had already been set to music by Palestrina and Pergolesi, among others, and would later be set to music by Liszt, Dvorak, and Verdi.

Written for choir, orchestra, and four voices, the piece consists of ten sections. The complete work lasts approximately one hour.
Presented here is the finale, Amen, in a performance by the Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Italian maestro Carlo Maria Giulini.