The Stabat Mater supplication is a fragment of the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin Mary. It is the fifth moment, when Mary stands before the cross:

• Simeon's prophecy.
• The flight into Egypt.
• The disappearance of the Child for three days.
• The encounter (a moment's glance) with Jesus carrying his cross and climbing Calvary.
• Mary, standing at the foot of the cross.
• The descent of Jesus.
• The burial.

These seven stages mark our spectacular creation, a collaboration between our two groups, one (based in Clermont-Ferrand) observing traces of the Middle Ages, the other (based in Lyon) specialising in consulting and highlighting scores from the Baroque period.

The sequence (sung poem) of the Stabat Mater is attributed by some to Jacopone da Todi (c. 1220–1306) and by others to Saint Bonaventure (1221–1274). It was also on the feast of the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin Mary on 18 March 1712 in the city of Brescia in Lombardy that Vivaldi composed his Stabat Mater , a sublime work that sets to music his intimate reflections on the shock of death and the confrontation of each individual with their own mortality. These reflections are translated into music that subtly evolves between restraint and expressiveness, giving way in the final verses to light, forgiveness and hope in ‘the glory of paradise’.

We have chosen 13th-century lauds from the Cortona manuscript to complete our proposal. This proposal therefore centres on one of the key pieces of the Baroque repertoire, arranged in our show for the tenor voice. Universality is not something that can be decreed; it is a process of construction. From the vestiges of a tradition that has come down to us from the Middle Ages, and to which Vivaldi brought a dizzying quality in his writing of the supplication, we will come together to harmonise our hearts and souls for the benefit of a ‘common endeavour’. From our encounter on stage will emerge an organisation where every gesture will be as musical as it is pictorial.