Sunday, April 6, 2025, 17:00 Berlin, Kirche Am Lietzensee
Saturday, April 19, 2025, 21:00 Berlin, Kirche Am Hohenzollernplatz – Passion concert by candlelight
Palestrina’s Lamentationes in concert and liturgy
on the 500th birthday of the legendary composer
Palestrina was and still is a style-setter today. Anyone studying composition must be familiar with his principles, which shaped Catholic church music for five centuries. Palestrina created balanced, enraptured, serene works, perfectly balanced between text comprehensibility and artistic polyphony. The almost 2,700-year-old texts in the Lamentations of Jeremiah mourn the destruction of Jerusalem. Strictly and artfully structured, they were performed as liturgical chants during the Passiontide from Maundy Thursday until complete darkness on the night of Holy Saturday. This dramatic musical staging also inspires contemporary composers. Two vocal works written by Ali Gorji and Frank Schwemmer for this occasion will be premiered at NightSong in honor of Palestrina. The two Berlin-based composers work with different cultural influences and meet at Palestrina, to whom they owe impulses and inspiration.
The meditative concert ends with the famous “Miserere” by Allegri, in which the soprano soars angelically on the high c”‘.
Admission is free.
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (ca. 1525 – 1594): Lamentationes Jeremiae prophetae – Liber 2
Ali Gorji (*1978): Tenebre (world premiere)
Frank Schwemmer (*1961): Domine Deus (world premiere)
Gregorio Allegri (1582 – 1652): Miserere
Sirventes berlin sings under the direction of Stefan Schuck
The nucleus of the musical program is the second book of Palestrina’s “Lamentationes”, which is very rarely heard. The Lamentationes – the Lamentations of Jeremiah – lament the destruction of Jerusalem in expressive poetry. These almost 2700-year-old texts are still read regularly in Judaism and Christianity today. In the 16th century, they were rearranged for the liturgy of the Holy Days (Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday) and structured in a strict symmetrical form of 3 x 3 x 3 text blocks, preceded by the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. After each section of text, a candle was extinguished until the final Miserere (Psalm 51) resounded in complete darkness.
This strict structure and the dramatic staging continue to inspire composers today to create extraordinary vocal works.
Palestrina’s second setting for four to eight-part a cappella choir demonstrates Palestrina’s mastery in particular: despite the balance of the voice leading and sublime serenity – generally emphasized as the hallmarks of Palestrina’s style – this composition surprises with its great, moving emotionality, especially in the setting of the Hebrew letters.
Palestrina today: world premieres
Two commissioned compositions by composers living in Berlin are to take up the spirit of Palestrina’s music and subject it to a metamorphosis into our time. Both composers are known for their experience with vocal parts. It will be interesting to see what different solutions Muslim Gorji and Protestant Schwemmer come up with.