St James’s Spanish Place is a spiritual oasis in the heart of Marylebone. A close neighbour to Wigmore Hall, this beautiful church can chart its history back to the re-establishment of the Spanish Embassy in London, following the restoration of Charles II. Through this concert explore Bach’s two periods in Weimar, which saw him develop his skills in many areas, notably in terms of the cantatas produced there.

‘Kommt, eilet und laufet’, because this Easter Sunday resident artists Vox Luminis are celebrating their 20th anniversary with Bach’s festive Easter Oratorio from 1725. As befits a real spiritual drama, four Biblical characters each highlight an aspect of Jesus’s miraculous Resurrection in some of Bach’s most beautiful arias. The festivities continue with the birthday-motet by Bach Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied (1727). Happy (re)birthday!

Coproduction: Perpodium
Supported by the Tax shelter of the Belgian Federal Government via Cronos Invest.

G.P. Telemann – Die Donnerode – TWV 6:3
J.S. Bach – Missa Brevis in F major – BWV 233

This concert brings you the best of both worlds. The world-renowned Belgian vocal ensemble Vox Luminis joins forces with the German Freiburger Barockorchester. Together, they perform Die Donnerode by Telemann and Bach’s Missa Brevis. Telemann wrote the work in response to the devastating Lisbon earthquake on 1 November 1755, which left no fewer than 60,000 dead. This particularly emotional piece is joined by Johann Sebastian Bach’s first Missa Brevis. The four Missae Breves written by J.S Bach between 1736 and 1739 are shrouded in mystery. Bach recycled the best music from his sacred cantatas, the end result of which are a delight for the ears from beginning to end.

G.P. Telemann – Die Donnerode – TWV 6:3
J.S. Bach – Missa Brevis in F major – BWV 233

This concert brings you the best of both worlds. The world-renowned Belgian vocal ensemble Vox Luminis joins forces with the German Freiburger Barockorchester. Together, they perform Die Donnerode by Telemann and Bach’s Missa Brevis. Telemann wrote the work in response to the devastating Lisbon earthquake on 1 November 1755, which left no fewer than 60,000 dead. This particularly emotional piece is joined by Johann Sebastian Bach’s first Missa Brevis. The four Missae Breves written by J.S Bach between 1736 and 1739 are shrouded in mystery. Bach recycled the best music from his sacred cantatas, the end result of which are a delight for the ears from beginning to end.

G.P. Telemann – Die Donnerode – TWV 6:3
J.S. Bach – Missa Brevis in F major – BWV 233

This concert brings you the best of both worlds. The world-renowned Belgian vocal ensemble Vox Luminis joins forces with the German Freiburger Barockorchester. Together, they perform Die Donnerode by Telemann and Bach’s Missa Brevis. Telemann wrote the work in response to the devastating Lisbon earthquake on 1 November 1755, which left no fewer than 60,000 dead. This particularly emotional piece is joined by Johann Sebastian Bach’s first Missa Brevis. The four Missae Breves written by J.S Bach between 1736 and 1739 are shrouded in mystery. Bach recycled the best music from his sacred cantatas, the end result of which are a delight for the ears from beginning to end.

G.P. Telemann – Die Donnerode – TWV 6:3
J.S. Bach – Missa Brevis in F major – BWV 233

This concert brings you the best of both worlds. The world-renowned Belgian vocal ensemble Vox Luminis joins forces with the German Freiburger Barockorchester. Together, they perform Die Donnerode by Telemann and Bach’s Missa Brevis. Telemann wrote the work in response to the devastating Lisbon earthquake on 1 November 1755, which left no fewer than 60,000 dead. This particularly emotional piece is joined by Johann Sebastian Bach’s first Missa Brevis. The four Missae Breves written by J.S Bach between 1736 and 1739 are shrouded in mystery. Bach recycled the best music from his sacred cantatas, the end result of which are a delight for the ears from beginning to end.

G.P. Telemann – Die Donnerode – TWV 6:3
J.S. Bach – Missa Brevis in F major – BWV 233

This concert brings you the best of both worlds. The world-renowned Belgian vocal ensemble Vox Luminis joins forces with the German Freiburger Barockorchester. Together, they perform Die Donnerode by Telemann and Bach’s Missa Brevis. Telemann wrote the work in response to the devastating Lisbon earthquake on 1 November 1755, which left no fewer than 60,000 dead. This particularly emotional piece is joined by Johann Sebastian Bach’s first Missa Brevis. The four Missae Breves written by J.S Bach between 1736 and 1739 are shrouded in mystery. Bach recycled the best music from his sacred cantatas, the end result of which are a delight for the ears from beginning to end.

For his 80th birthday, Joshua Rifkin will conduct Vox Luminis on three Bach cantatas: “Wahrlich, wahrlich, ich sage euch” (BWV 86), “Wer da gläubet und getauft wird” (BWV 37) and “Sie werden euch in den Bann tun” (BWV 44).

An original and unique collaboration!

The concert will be preceded by a reflection by Michael Maul on a cantate.

Vox Luminis brings the enchanting story of The Fairy Queen to life. The Fairy Queen draws its inspiration from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a piece that also strongly stimulates the visual imagination. The brilliant voices of Vox Luminis will resound amongst a spirited shadow play balancing between reality and subconsciousness, a new project by artistic director Lionel Meunier and scenographer Emilie Lauwers, in cooperation with dramaturge Isaline Claeys and filmmaker Mário Melo Costa.

Co-production : Concertgebouw Brugge

Vox Luminis brings the enchanting story of The Fairy Queen to life. The Fairy Queen draws its inspiration from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a piece that also strongly stimulates the visual imagination. The brilliant voices of Vox Luminis will resound amongst a spirited shadow play balancing between reality and subconsciousness, a new project by artistic director Lionel Meunier and scenographer Emilie Lauwers, in cooperation with dramaturge Isaline Claeys and filmmaker Mário Melo Costa.

Co-production : Concertgebouw Brugge

Vox Luminis brings the enchanting story of The Fairy Queen to life. The Fairy Queen draws its inspiration from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a piece that also strongly stimulates the visual imagination. The brilliant voices of Vox Luminis will resound amongst a spirited shadow play balancing between reality and subconsciousness, a new project by artistic director Lionel Meunier and scenographer Emilie Lauwers, in cooperation with dramaturge Isaline Claeys and filmmaker Mário Melo Costa.

Co-production : Concertgebouw Brugge

Vox Luminis brings the enchanting story of The Fairy Queen to life. The Fairy Queen draws its inspiration from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a piece that also strongly stimulates the visual imagination. The brilliant voices of Vox Luminis will resound amongst a spirited shadow play balancing between reality and subconsciousness, a new project by artistic director Lionel Meunier and scenographer Emilie Lauwers, in cooperation with dramaturge Isaline Claeys and filmmaker Mário Melo Costa.

Co-production : Concertgebouw Brugge

Conducted by Lionel Meunier, Vox Luminis brings Monteverdi’s masterful Vespers of the Virgin to the church of Collège St-Michel in Fribourg.

In 1641 Monteverdi published his Selva morale e spirituali, a major retrospective that he produced of sacred works produced over nearly three decades as musical director at St Mark’s Basilica in Venice. Covering a wide range of styles and emotions, they make use of the expressive resources he had developed as a master of the church motet, secular madrigal and opera. Vox Luminis’s selection ranges from large-scale, colourfully accompanied motets to intimate creations for just a few singers and players.

In 1641 Monteverdi published his Selva morale e spirituali, a major retrospective that he produced of sacred works produced over nearly three decades as musical director at St Mark’s Basilica in Venice. Covering a wide range of styles and emotions, they make use of the expressive resources he had developed as a master of the church motet, secular madrigal and opera. Vox Luminis’s selection ranges from large-scale, colourfully accompanied motets to intimate creations for just a few singers and players.

In 1641 Monteverdi published his Selva morale e spirituali, a major retrospective that he produced of sacred works produced over nearly three decades as musical director at St Mark’s Basilica in Venice. Covering a wide range of styles and emotions, they make use of the expressive resources he had developed as a master of the church motet, secular madrigal and opera. Vox Luminis’s selection ranges from large-scale, colourfully accompanied motets to intimate creations for just a few singers and players.

Thomas Tallis: Spem in alium
Thomas Tallis : The Lamentations of Jeremiah a 5
John Sheppard: Media vita
Alessandro Striggio: Ecce beatam lucem
Thomas Tallis: Spem in alium

Artistic director Lionel Meunier selected the iconic motet Media Vita of Sheppard, extremely moving music here flanked by two pieces written for 40 a capella voices. Writing for 40 voices implies a series of logistical and technical challenges. Tallis and Striggio probably met in London in 1567. Tallis’s monumental 40-voice work, Spem in alium, was probably inspired by the example of Striggio. Whereas Striggio’s composition Ecce Beatam lucem was probably designed for semicircular performance, Tallis had designed his music to be heard ‘in the round’, with the listener seated within the circle of performers. The music seems as such to ‘rotate’ around a circle. 

In the mid-16th century, a heated debate raged in the Vatican about polyphony in religious practice. The complex play of simultaneously sung lines made it difficult to understand the words, sceptics maintained, which was good reason to ban polyphonic music from the liturgy. Their most notorious opponent – as legend has it – was Pope Marcellus II. His adamant insistence that polyphony could in fact be clearly understood may have been the most remarkable statement of his papacy, which only lasted 22 days. Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was charged with writing a new mass to prove the Pope right. The Missa Papae Marcelli is a success in every respect: transparent textures ensure the texts are fluent without the slightest compromise in terms of style or refinement. The piece became a paragon of Tridentine polyphony, inspiring generations of composers and leading to the epithet ‘saviour of polyphony’ for da Palestrina. The velvet voices of Vox Luminis will make this crown jewel sparkle as brightly as it did in Palestrina’s day.

With Cristóbal de Morales, Vox Luminis shines a light on the most important composer from the Iberian peninsula in the first half of the 16th century, nicknamed “la luz de España en la música” (the light of Spain in music). He not only worked in Spanish Cathedrals, but was also a singer in the Papal Choir of the Sistine Chapel for many years. His five-part Missa pro Defunctis, printed in Rome in 1544, is a requiem of magnificent proportions, a true milestone of Western sacred music.

Part III of the Atelier “Wege zu Bach”, leaded by Lionel Meunier and other members of Vox Luminis since September 2, unlocks new doors to the Baroque grand master’s influences. One name keeps cropping up: Dieterich Buxtehude. In 1705, Bach made a pilgrimage from Arnstadt to Lübeck to see him, because it was here that the »Abendmusiken«, probably the world’s first public concert series, were held. The tradition established by his predecessor Franz Tunder in St. Mary’s Church was developed into a series of magnificent sacred concerts by Buxtehude. His cantata »Ihr Lieben Christen, freut euch nun«, which Bach may have heard, is testimony to this. Bach also made copies of works by Nicolaus Bruhns, a student of Buxtehude’s who died young in 1697, and contributed to their circulation after his return to central Germany.

After the Tudor composers and before Handel, it was Henry Purcell who gave the English baroque its soul. With its brilliant mix of tradition and innovation, the Orpheus Britannicus also conquered the heart of Vox Luminis: one of the most celebrated Belgian formations of the moment. With King Arthur, it serves up a dramatic opera in which the swords of the Saxons clash, Roman and Germanic gods bicker and an epic soundtrack swings from climax to climax.

In collaboration with l’Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège.