Palestrina forever – 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