During the 34th International Festival “May with Early Music”, two superb ensembles specialising in historical performance will present European works from three centuries. Ars Cantus will reach for late medieval pieces preserved in the famous manuscript from the Krasiński Library, known as “Kras 52”, and a Renaissance motet by Guillaume Du Fay. Wrocław Baroque Ensemble, conducted by maestro Andrzej Kosendiak, will present Baroque works by Samuel Capricornus and Dietrich Buxtehude. The concert will be dedicated to the memory of Maciej Kieres – the long-time artistic director of the festival.

From among the pieces from the Krasiński Codex, the musicians of Ars Cantus have chosen a work by Mikołaj of Radom – the first Polish composer known by name. The artists will also perform the piece by a famous European artist, Antonio Zacara de Teramo, whose work was well received in fifteenth-century Kraków, witness the manuscript from the Krasiński collection. We will also hear the four-part Lamentatio Sanctae Matris Ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae by the influential Renaissance master Guillaume Du Fay – of his four lamentations only this one has survived, and it was written after the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453.

The second part of the concert will be devoted to the notable representative of the northern German Baroque style – Dietrich Buxtehude. This composer worked mostly in Lübeck, which was the destination of visits by artists such as George Frideric Handel and Johann Sebastian Bach. Wrocław Baroque Ensemble will perform the work being a prototype of oratorio in Lutheran church music – Membra Jesu Nostri. It is devoid of liturgical character and consists of seven short cantatas that are meditations on the wounds of the crucified Christ. The source of the text is the Latin poem Salve mundi salutare, traditionally attributed to St Bernard of Clairvaux – it is believed, though, that it was created in the 13th century by another Cistercian, Arnulf of Leuven. Buxtehude combines the medieval stanzas with verses from the Bible, and in the musical layer, he blends Italian patterns with the artistic traditions of the region of Europe from which he hailed.