Antonín Dvorák's Stabat Mater for four vocal soloists (SATB), chorus, and orchestra, Op. 58 is a work born of deep sorrow. The death of his infant daughter in late 1875 (tragically, she never passed her second day of life) moved Dvorák, a devout Catholic, to begin the Stabat Mater in February 1876; the deaths of his other daughter and only son in August and September of the following year moved him to finish the work. The Stabat Mater dolorosa sequence is, of course, well-suited for expressing a parent's agony, for the text itself tells of a parent's anguish, Mary bereaved. For all the depth of feeling that Dvorák poured into the Stabat Mater, Op. 58, he seems not to have considered it an especially private piece of music; indeed, it was one of the composer's biggest triumphs to date at its Prague premiere in on December 23, 1880.

Dvorák sets the Stabat Mater dolorosa sequence in ten sections of music that, for the most part (and with some exceptions), alternate between chorus and soloists. The opening Andante con moto begins with a substantial orchestral introduction—as pained a specimen of B minor as the late nineteenth century ever produced, filled with little chromatic descents that just weep. The soloists enter with music that sounds like heartbeats, pianissimo and very hollow; the chorus follows shortly. This lengthy first number is a major achievement the likes of which any composer would covet.

Quartet and chorus make their respective cases separately in Nos. 2 and 3; in No. 4, which presents the Fac ut urdeat cor meum text in a B flat minor Largo, the bass soloist explores the depths of "His Passion." In No. 6, the tenor soloist brightens things up a bit (B major) as he lies at Jesus' feet "in adoration." Some of the opening number's quiet agony is recalled at the start of the final number, "Quando corpus morietur," but the "glory of Paradise" dissolves the Holy Mother's pain, and Dvorák is able to end his Stabat Mater in a blissful expanse of D major, triumphant at first, utterly tranquil at the last.

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