A deeply moving performance of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater will take place at St Margaret’s Church in Ilkley on Friday [10 April] at 12.30pm, as part of the church’s monthly lunchtime recital series.
Composed in 1736 during the final months of Pergolesi’s life, Stabat Mater is one of the most enduring sacred works of the eighteenth century. Written when the composer was just 26 and living in a Franciscan monastery in Pozzuoli, the work quickly gained widespread admiration and went on to become the most frequently printed musical composition of its century. Its setting of the 13th‑century Franciscan text is both intimate and deeply expressive, tracing a journey through sorrow, reflection and consolation.
The performance will feature soprano Elaine Dave, mezzo‑soprano Dawn Walters [pictured above], and organist Christopher Rathbone, also Director of Music at St Margaret’s.
Reflecting on the upcoming event, Christopher said:
“Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater is a masterpiece of emotional clarity and directness. Its simplicity allows the text to speak with extraordinary power and performing it in the beautiful acoustic of St Margaret’s will be a profoundly moving experience. I believe audiences will find its tenderness and humanity especially affecting.”
Elaine Dave [above], based in Gargrave, is well known locally as accompanist to the Steeton Male Voice Choir and formerly taught singing for the East Riding Music Service. She has appeared as soloist for many choirs across the North of England, notably the Wakefield Festival Chorus and Hull Choral Union and has performed Berlioz’s Nuits d’Été and Glière’s Concerto for Coloratura Soprano with the Scarborough Symphony. She also directs Voices of Craven and Libertas, a male vocal ensemble.
Mezzo‑soprano Dawn Walters is a familiar voice in Yorkshire’s choral and liturgical music scene, performing with Robert Hollingsworth’s The 24, the York Oratory’s professional quartet, and as an alto Lay Clerk at Sheffield Cathedral, while also deputising at York Minster. Alongside her singing career, she is an accomplished composer published by Banks, with performances and broadcasts of her work across Europe.
Originally scored for strings and continuo, Stabat Mater adapts beautifully to the organ, allowing the two vocal lines to shine with clarity and poignancy. The work’s sequence of solos, duets and choruses traces a compelling emotional arc that resonates as strongly today as it did nearly three centuries ago.
Admission to the concert is free and everyone is warmly welcome. A retiring collection in support of the St Margaret’s Organ Restoration Fund will help to preserve and enhance the church’s musical life for the future.
For further information, visit stmargaretsilkley.org or find the church on Facebook.
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