25 September, 7 pm
Palace of the Grand Dukes, Katedros a. 4, Vilnius
Sehet, wir gehn hinauf gen Jerusalem
J. S. Bach: cantatas BWV 32, 159, 131
Conductor Christian Frattima (Italy)
Monika Mauch – soprano (Germany), Franz Vitzthum – countertenor (Germany), Charles Daniels – tenor (UK), Carsten Krüger – bass (Germany)
Festival choir and orchestra, director Alina Rotaru – organ (Germany / Lithuania)
CHOIR (Lithuania): Augustė Andrijauskaitė, Justina Leinartaitė, Ūla Zemeckytė, Evita Rudžionytė, Povilas Vanžodis, Evaldas Alekna, Gabrielius Gaidamavičius, Arūnas Maliukas, Vytautas Vepštas
ORCHESTRA (Italy, Germany, Estonia, Lithuania): Friederike Köhncke - oboe, Christina Hahn - bassoon, Meelis Orgse, Vaida Paukštienė - violins, Gediminas Dačinskas, Katerina Zach - violas, Darius Stabinskas - cello, Imre Eenma - double bass
The closing concert of this year’s festival will present three emblematic church cantatas by J. S. Bach (1685–1750). BWV 32 ‘Liebster Jesu, mein Verlangen’ (1726) is based upon a text from the prescribed gospel, ‘The Finding in the Temple’. BWV 159 ‘Sehet wir gehen hinauf gen Jerusalem’ (1729) tells of Jesus announcing his suffering and death in Jerusalem. The concert ends with Bach’s earliest surviving cantata BWV 131 ‘Aus der Tiefe’ (1707), originating from his early years in Mühlhausen – a cantata most probably written in the same year as BWV 106 ‘Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit’, also known as ‘Actus tragicus’, which audiences were able to hear during the previous edition of Banchetto Musicale Festival in 2021. Its text is based on Psalm 130, and is a cry for mercy, as well as an expression of trust in God – again, a state of mind and soul in which we all find ourselves today, as a direct result of the terrible war in our beloved Europe. It is a state that we must bear with dignity and courage; a state that created this cantata: the Weltschmerz.
