LUX AETERNA

After graduating from the Naples Conservatory in 1731, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710 - 36) had just five years to make a name for himself as a composer before his untimely death in March 1736. If, since his death, his name has remained present in musical life down the centuries, it is only because of his famous ‘Stabat mater’. This work was commissioned by the noble Confraternity of the Sorrowful Mother. Pergolesi received the commission at the end of 1734, but did not complete it until shortly before his death from illness. The work would have been intended for the brotherhood's services every Friday in March in the church of San Luigi di Palazzo in Naples. Pergolesi's composition, in keeping with the modern style and sensitive new taste, was intended to replace the ‘Stabat mater’ by Alessandro Scarlatti (1660 - 1725), who had died around ten years earlier, which was also commissioned by the brotherhood. However, whereas Scarlatti's work was set to music in a dramatic manner and with a highly Baroque emphasis, Pergolesi's composition is based on the principle of ‘chiaroscuro’, i.e. contrasting lighting in a succession of tableaux and contemplative scenes. The structure of the twelve movements in all is divided into solo movements (arias) and duets, although these are by no means operatic types of aria. Pergolesi chose the sombre funereal key of F minor, which suits the funereal mood perfectly.

Like Pergolesi, Niccolò Jommelli (1714 - 74) was also a representative of the Neapolitan school. Jommelli took up his post as Kapellmeister at the Stuttgart court of the young Duke Carl Eugen of Württemberg in November 1753 and remained there for sixteen years. He was given extensive powers and six weeks' holiday a year. Two new operas a year were part of his duties at court. Opera was at the forefront of his duties and obligations. He had little to do with religious music. Even before the court moved its residence from Stuttgart to Ludwigsburg in 1764, the Duchess-Mother Maria Augusta von Thurn und Taxis died on 1 February 1756. Jommelli was commissioned by the duke to compose a mass for the dead, the ‘Missa pro defunctis’, for the funeral on 9 February in the chapel of Ludwigsburg Castle. As the time available for composing a Mass for the Dead was extremely short, Jommelli used some of his earlier compositions for three movements and reworked them. He also took motifs and fugue themes from earlier religious works.