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By Voice staff
St. Augustine Parish in Oakland will offer the Stations
of the Cross with the Pergolesi “Stabat Mater” on Good Friday,
March 21, beginning at 1 p.m.
The “Stabat Mater” is a medieval poem describing the anguish
of the Virgin Mary during the Crucifixion. Many Catholics are familiar
with its modern English translation, “At the cross her station keeping,
stood the mournful Mother weeping, close to Jesus to the end.”
It became associated with the Stations of the Cross during Good Friday
devotions early in its history. Pergolesi set the poem to music in 1735
for a Neapolitan group devoted to the Blessed Vrgin for their Good Friday
devotions. It is considered one of the finest of the poem’s musical
settings which include chants of the Medieval period and the polyphonic
music of the Renaissance.
The Grammy Award-winning Pacific Boychoir Academy and members of the Laudate
Orchestra will perform the work. The Boychoir, a community organization
not affiliated with any church, ethnic group of specific geographic area,
has seven choirs for boys ages 5-18. It also sponsors the West Coast’s
only fully-academic choir school for grades 4-8, where boys have daily
musical instruction in addition to the standard academic curriculum. The
Academy is based at St. Augustine’s and the boys in the choir school,
the Troubadors, have sung with orchestras and choirs in the U.S. and around
the world.
St. Augustine Church, located at 400 Alcatraz Avenue in Oakland, will
be open at noon on Good Friday for meditation and prayer prior to the
“Stabat Mater” and Stations of the Cross. These devotions
are open to all free of charge.
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