Stabat Mater

Melcior Juncà Ferré was born in Sant Joan de les Abadesses on January 5, 1757. The son of the chapel master of the town where he was born, the young Melcior held the same position as his father in 1776. He later worked for a few years in Barcelona, until that in 1789 he obtained the position of chapel master of the Cathedral of Tarragona, where he worked until his resignation in 1806.

Melcior Juncà’s production presents more than two hundred works, the majority in Latin, written for the liturgical services of the Cathedral of Tarragona, where a large part of them are preserved. Among these, we present a Stabat Mater, written in twelve movements on the text of the famous Latin poem. Other works worth mentioning are the numerous lamentations, responses, psalms, motets and several masses, as well as Christmas carols and other text works in Spanish.

The work we are presenting bears certain parallels with another Stabat Mater, specifically that of an author for whom Melcior Juncà felt great admiration. We refer to the work of Franz Joseph Haydn, whose main key is the same as the work we are presenting: G minor. Melcior Juncà’s instrumentation is, however, more austere: two oboes, two horns, four string sections that do not include the double basses, and the four voices of a mixed choir, from which some of the best had to be chosen. singers to sing solo or duet numbers.