A meditation on the suffering of the Virgin Mary at the foot of the cross, the Stabat Mater has never ceased to inspire musical composition. During the Baroque period, many composers took up this religious hymn of medieval origin, attributed to the Italian Franciscan Jacopone da Todi (1236–1306).

Gaspard Layet-Lecuyer’s graduation concert will feature three vocal works composed between 1660 and 1750. The evening will open with Sébastien de Brossard’s majestic Stabat Mater (1702), the most famous of the three works featured in this programme. Moving from Paris to Naples, Giovanni Salvatore’s work, composed around 1660, will then reveal a style rooted in the vitality of 17^th-century Neapolitan music. Finally, with his work composed for the Habsburg court in the 1740s, František Tůma offers a sensitive and vibrant interpretation of the Stabat Mater text, in which the developments in the musical language of the mid-18th century are already evident.

This programme thus highlights the richness and diversity of a single sacred text, which is continually reinterpreted according to different places, styles and sensibilities.