October 3, Wednesday, 6 pm
Palace of the Grand Dukes, Katedros a. 4
Silva rerum 1562
The 450th wedding anniversary of Catherine Jagiellon and John III of Sweden
BREVIS Choir and Consort
Directors Gintautas Venislovas and Darius Stabinskas
Silva rerum 1562 is a musical programme presenting 16th-century composers who worked and created music in the court of the rulers of the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth – namely, works by Wacław from Szamotuł, Valentin Bakfark, Krzysztof Klabon, Cyprian Bazylik, Jan from Lublin and others.
Silva rerum was the Latin title for "a forest of things", a kind of chronicle from the 16th-18th centuries compiled by households of the
Polish aristocracy, added to by forthcoming generations mentioning important family events and state life, which could include journals, fragments of letters,
and so on.
In their concert, the chronicle presented by the Brevis Choir and Consort focuses on one significant historic event – the marriage of Catherine Jagiellon, the sister of the King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania Sigismund Augustus, and the Duke of Finland, John Vasa (later John III of Sweden), which took place in 1562 in the Vilnius Cathedral and was celebrated in the Lower Castle. This union heralded the beginning of the 80-year-long reign of the Vasa dynasty that was associated not only with international diplomacy, military triumphs and defeats, but also with the traditions of patronage and the spread of Baroque culture and artistic ideas.