Václav Luks conductor
Marie Perbost soprano
Lucile Richardot alto
David Fischer tenor
Stephan MacLeod bass

Joseph Haydn
Stabat Mater
Jan Dismas Zelenka
Miserere in C minor, ZWV 57

A double bassist in the finest ensemble of his time – the Dresden Court Orchestra, whose desks were occupied by many illustrious composers and which primarily performed the works of its own musicians – Zelenka paid little heed to rules or conventions. A tempestuous figure, he helped revolutionise musical forms when they proved insufficient to contain his fervour and imagination, and his visceral Miserere deserves to be as widely known as Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater.
For this concert, in keeping with the theme of our festival, we invite audiences to discover Haydn’s Stabat Mater. Setting the works of Haydn and Zelenka side by side highlights how, in his own Stabat Mater, Haydn positioned himself within the Baroque tradition and within a lineage extending from his predecessor Werner to Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater – already the “hit” it remains to this day. By 1768, Pergolesi’s work had been performed regularly and widely across Europe for several decades.
It is said that when Haydn’s Stabat Mater was first performed in Paris, audiences were initially outraged, having expected to hear Pergolesi instead. Yet after the concert, opinions softened and the new work was enthusiastically acclaimed.
We have long wished to place Gli Angeli Genève in the expert hands of Václav Luks. An indefatigable discoverer, editor and passionate advocate of the music of his compatriot Zelenka, he is one of the world’s leading specialists of eighteenth-century repertoire. His fervour and energy promise a concert full of sparks.