Musical Meditation for Good Friday

It is something of a minor tradition at the Cathedral for a setting of the Stabat Mater to be sung on the afternoon of Good Friday – a devotional and solemn musical offering in the shadow of the Cross. This year, Andrew McAnerney will direct our Lay Clerks and Choral Scholars accompanied by Cathedral Organist James Calkin in Josef Rheinberger’s “Stabat Mater” Opus 138. Rheinberger (1839-1901) spent his career in Munich both at the royal court and the conservatory where he was a revered pedagogue. Restrained and elegant, this “Stabat Mater” (one of two he composed) was written in 1884 – a thank-offering for a recovery in his health.