Music For Passiontide
Much music has been written for Passiontide or rather for the last days of Holy Week. Passion cantatas have been composed to texts in a variety of languages, taking as their theme the hours or days before the Crucifixion of Christ. Many settings have been made of the Latin poem Stabat Mater, which describes Mary standing in front of the Cross watching her son die (the Feast of the Seven Dolours of the Blessed Virgin is observed on Friday in Passion Week), and the lessons from the Tenebrae service have been set by a variety of composers.
Several composers have also set to music the last words of Christ on the Cross, e.g. Joseph Haydn (Die sieben letzten Worte unseres Erlösers am Kreuze) and Heinrich Schütz (Die sieben Worte Jesu Christi am Kreuz).
Notice that there are special hymns for Palm Sunday, thus hymns for Passiontide may be squeezed out on that day (which is the last Sunday of Lent).
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