Madison Bach Musicians

media release: 7:15 pm lecture, 8 pm concert.

Please join us in the superb acoustics and ambiance of Grace Episcopal Church for masterworks by Pergolesi and Bach devoted to the Easter season. The program begins with Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, written during the final months of the composer’s tragically brief life. Set in the funereal key of F minor for soprano and mezzo-soprano soloists with strings and basso continuo, the twelve brief and concentrated movements of Stabat Mater are a meditation on Mary’s sorrow at the scene of Jesus’ crucifixion. In the years just after Pergolesi’s death in 1736, the work was distributed widely throughout Europe in manuscript copies—J. S. Bach was so moved that he arranged it (complete!) with a new German text by the librettist Picander based upon Psalm 51.

The second part of the concert opens with the aria Sanfte soll mein Todeskummer from Bach’s Easter Oratorio. In it, the haunting and gossamer texture of two recorders and muted strings accompanies the disciple Peter (tenor) as he describes how, metaphorically, the veil just found at Jesus’s empty tomb will someday wipe away the tears and ease the suffering of Peter’s own death. The program closes with Bach’s Easter Cantata (BWV 4) Christ lag in Todesbanden. Completed when Bach was only in his early twenties, this work remains one of the most distilled pieces in the western canon. The well-known chorale tune is outlined and foreshadowed throughout an opening sinfonia and six ensuing verses. In the seventh and final verse, the unadorned chorale suddenly blazes before us. BWV 4 can be seen as the manifestation in music of Michelangelo’s famous quote about artistic process: “The sculpture is already there within the marble block . . . I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.”

Music for Easter Week will be presented for both in-person and livestream audiences. For in-person audiences, on both Wednesday and Friday, April 13 and 15, the pre-concert talk by Trevor Stephenson begins at 7:15 PM followed by the concert at 8:00 PM. Only the Friday concert will be livestreamed. If you would like to watch the concert again, the recording will be available through April 29 to all people who purchase tickets.

Sarah Brailey, soprano

Clara Osowski, mezzo-soprano

Dann Coakwell, tenor

Michael Hawes, bass-baritone

String ensemble with continuo