It is slightly cheeky of me to entitle my post this week with a movement title used in Petr Eben’s Job, discussed last week, while this week we are considering a different work entirely. Giant of contemporary classical music, and if anything even more so of music that might validly be considered theological, the Scottish composer James MacMillian offers another name which might have been expected to appear on this site sooner.

Specifically, I am thinking of his choral setting of ‘words from the stabat mater with additional text by the composer’ which he entitled ‘…fiat mihi…’. Scored for double choir a cappella, the work is a stand-alone movement, though related to the seventh movement of the same composer’s St John Passion.

Featuring MacMillan’s habitual technique of creating a ringing effect by having parts sing similar lines in close canon – related to the tintinbabuli popularised by Arvo Pärt – and giving a magical affectation to a line which imitates middle-eastern lament, this haunting movement is a fitting expression of the Blessed Virgin’s relation to the Christ in His passion. Of the additions to the text, the final phrase directly references Bach’s Passion Chorale, standing this work in relation to that protestant tradition of Passion, perhaps an inclusive gesture from a Catholic composer, though it may just be a musical debt rather than a theological point.

Most striking, however, is the relationship between the Stabat Mater text and the title, which refers back to the annunciation, and Mary’s response ‘be it unto me’. Mary is a theological cipher for the virtue of obedience on account of this fiat, but since we most often hear it in the context of the Christmas story it is, perhaps, too easy to associate it with the joy of the incarnation. And yet, we know (with hindsight, at least) that the incarnation inexorably led to the crucifixion, and that the fiat mihi of the Blessed Mother encompasses the sorrowful as well as the joyful mysteries.

What more need be said: a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also?