Vom Mitleiden Maria (Mary's Suffering, D. 632) is one of Schubert's rare contrapuntal songs. That Schubert was familiar with counterpoint and even able to compose it with facility was a result of his studies with Antonio Salieri. But that he was able to infuse counterpoint with deep emotion and profound compassion was due to Schubert's innate empathic nature.

Schubert's setting of Friedrich von Schlegel's Vom Mitleiden Maria from December 1818 takes the poem's depiction of the infinite sorrow of the pietà for Christ's crucifixion and death and turns it into a three-part contrapuntal invention. However, Schubert's setting is no dry exercise but rather a heartrending song in which each aching line limns the agony of Christ's mother as she watches her child die an excruciating death. Schlegel himself was a convert to Catholicism, and he had all the fervor of the newly converted. Schubert himself was born a Catholic, but his early experiences with the Church had impelled him towards pantheism. However, Schlegel's melancholy meditation on Mary's suffering prompted Schubert to compose less a Catholic contrapuntal song than a compassionate song on pain and loss universally.

© All Music Guide