Church music by George Frideric Handel is certainly less popular than compositions he created for the theatre. Yet among the sumptuous works, there are many true masterpieces. During a concert in the Church of Peace in Świdnica, Wrocław Baroque Ensemble led by Andrzej Kosendiak will combine them with compositions by an Estonian artist born two hundred and fifty years after the Baroque master. Arvo Pärt, when facing the sacred, has decided to adopt a completely different attitude than the author of Messiah – his music is full of simplicity and modesty.

The Estonian’s works featured in the programme will be related to the Feast of Pentecost falling on the day of the concert. Pärt composed them using his own technique of tintinnabula, which brings associations with musical minimalism, which has earned him the position of one of the greatest composers of our time. In Veni Creator, he composed two stanzas of a hymn to the Holy Spirit used in the Pentecost liturgy. We will then hear one of the parts of Berliner Masse composed in 1990–1991. The composer included in the setting of the ordinarium missae the Veni Sancte Spiritus hymn sung on Whitsunday, and this is what will be heard in Świdnica.

Handel’s compositions presented in the second part of the concert also share a common liturgical purpose. The composer from Halle wrote them when he was twenty-one years old and had just arrived in Italy. It was then that he received an order to create new works for the celebration of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel in the Carmelite church of Santa Maria in Montesanto in Rome. For this occasion, Handel composed three psalms performed during Vespers that day. Wrocław Baroque Ensemble will present two of them. The first will be Nisi Dominus, i.e. Psalm 127 (Except the Lord build the house), then Dixit Dominus (The Lord said onto my Lord) – Psalm 110. In both, Handel brilliantly combines the German musical style based on counterpoint with the finesse and melodicism typical of Italy.