According to a tradition dating back to the 1700’s, the Stabat Mater was the last composition by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi.The sensational success of the composition is proven by the numerous editions which followed one another during the 1700’s and above all by the great number of handwritten copies kept in thousands of libraries throughout the world. Another sign of the interest shown in the Stabat Mater is the quite remarkable number of parodies which the original was subject to. The Bach parody which substituted the Stabat Mater text with a german paraphrase of the 51st Psalm, Tilge Hochster meine Sunden (the Miserere) based on the Luther version must also seen in this light.