The composer César Franck is best known today for his Panis Angelicus. The Seven Last Words is a devotional work written in 1859, but never performed until the work was discovered in 1977.
Franck was not the only composer to set the seven last words of Jesus (actually, sentences, not words!) but Franck was unusual in that he sought to expand on the brief text by supplementing other biblical and liturgical texts, reflecting the fact that he was a parish church organist steeped in the Catholic liturgical tradition. Soloists include Connor Cobb (bass).
