ARVO PÄRT De profundis
ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK Biblical Songs (The Lord is my Shepherd, By the Rivers of Babylon), arr. A. Tučapský
FRANTIŠEK PICKA The Passion of Christ (selection)

Theodor Šimáček bass-baritone
Lukáš Kubenka organ
Moravian Teachers’ Choir
choirmaster Jiří Šimáček

After several years devoted to the complete works of a single composer or otherwise related compositions, the festival’s traditional dark hour is now deliberately diverse.

On Wednesday, one of the oldest functioning choirs in the Czech Republic, the Moravian Teachers’ Choir (founded in 1903), will perform a somewhat atypical sacred program combining arrangements by one of its former choir directors, Antonín Tučapský, and Arvo Pärt’s fascinating musical setting of the psalm From the Depths (for male choir, organ, and percussion).

The concert will be performed without intermission.

On Maundy Thursday, the first part of the oratorio diptych Via sancta (The Holy Way) will be performed. It was commissioned by the festival and loosely follows on from the successful project Nova cantio – Tenebrae, which was presented during the 31st Easter Festival of Sacred Music. Over two evenings (April 2 and 7), four interconnected oratorios based on original librettos drawn from Latin texts of key biblical stories will be performed. Although the project will take place on two dates, the ambition of the dramaturgy is to present it to the audience as a single whole divided into two spiritual stops, rather than as two separate concerts, and to create a dramaturgical bridge between the Old and New Testaments.

Renaissance polyphony will be heard during the 33rd Easter Festival, appropriately on Good Friday, in works by Spanish and Neapolitan composers, especially in the meditative lamentations of Cristóbal de Morales performed by the international ensemble of period instrument players Ramillete de Tonos. The Good Friday program oscillates between two generations connected with the Iberian Peninsula in the 16th century. The core of the program is formed by Cristóbal Morales’ Lamentations (Venice 1564), interwoven with intabulations of vocal works or instrumental compositions which (although without words) illustrate the story of Jeremiah’s lament. All this is performed by a chamber ensemble of four voices and four period instruments.