Il pianto della Madonna (voice and piano reduction)

Il piantodella Madonna, also known as Donna de Paradiso, is one of the most popular of the “laudadrammatica” from Jacopone da Todi (1206-1326) and the first example of the “dialogue lauda”.Re-workingthe Gospel with freedom and using the Umbrian dialect and a language that is more folk than learned, the authorsuccessfully translates the Passion of Christ from a thoughtful to a dramatic plane. Moreover, the importance he places on the suffering and naivety of Mary and the violent expressiveness and meticulousness of the description of physical suffering contribute to bringing divinity closer and help to identify with his ordeal and death.
As if it were a stage performance, Todi presentsseveral characters: Mary, the messenger, the crowd and Christ. The centrepiece is not Christ but rather the sorrow of Mary who speaks with the other characters. These theatrical traits derive from the Perugian laudawhich was more oriented towards dissemination of the Gospel and humanisation of the religious theme rather than mysticism. Thus, Mary, more than a “Donna de Paradiso” is a desperate woman who is oftenunaware of the theological implications surrounding the suffering of her son.
The text comprises an introduction of three verses and thirty-three stanzas of four rhyming verses in the AAAX rhyming scheme and is divided into three parts:
1. The first part describes the Via Crucis and is focused on a mother who sees how her son is tortured through no fault of his own and who tries in vain to convince the crowd and Pilateof his innocence.
2. The second part is focused on the dialogue between the son, dying on the cross, and the mother.
3.The third part is “il corrotto” (deriving from “cor rotto” or “broken heart”), Mary's funeral lament, basedon an unyielding five-note bass repeated eighteen times.