FOCUS PASSION III

19:00 hrs | Cathedral FOCUS PASSION III
Johann Sebastian Bach - Steffen Schleiermacher: "After St Mark's Passion" BWV 247 Commissioned by the Leipzig Bach Festival, the City of Merseburg, the City of Mühlhausen and the Oslo Church Music Festival 2016

"The old in the new, the new in the old"

The St Mark Passion was first performed in Leipzig in 1731. While the libretto has been preserved in its entirety, only the choruses and arias, which Bach took from the funeral ode for the Saxon Electress Christiane Eberhardine, and the chorale movements have survived.

The intention of the composer Steffen Schleiermacher and the poet Christian Lehnert was not to reconstruct, but to compose the "missing" parts anew. They reacted to this old music and these old texts and the Passion story from their own perspective and in relation to the times, without wanting to copy or imitate them.

Soloists, Collegium Vocale Leipzig and the Merseburg Court Music (on instruments of historical scale) combine "the old and the new".

Director: Michael Beauty

Soloists: Frieda Jolande Barck (soprano), Britta Schwarz (alto), Tobias Hunger (tenor), Dirk Schmidt (bass)

Ensembles: Collegium Vocale Leipzig, Merseburg Court Music

Further information at www.merseburger-orgeltage.de