The Music First concert series will come to a close on Sunday evening at the Wrocław Cathedral. Under the direction of Andrzej Kosendiak, the Wrocław Baroque Ensemble will present works by two Polish composers of the eighteenth century: Marcin Józef Żebrowski and Grzegorz Gerwazy Gorczycki. The place and timing of this event are no coincidence, for the programme is built around musical interpretation of texts from the Liturgy of the Hours: Vespers and Compline.

In the eighteenth century, Vespers held a place of great importance among church services, and on major feast days they were given special musical adornment. At Jasna Góra Monastery – elevated to one of the most important musical centers of the time after the papal coronation of the icon of Our Lady of Częstochowa – Marcin Józef Żebrowski served as chapel master for many years. His Vesperae in D cum variis psalmis was designed to accompany worship throughout the liturgical year, with a special role in Marian celebrations.

In 2022, the Wrocław Baroque Ensemble prepared and recorded a reconstruction of prayers intended for the Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Seeking to recreate the historical context of the liturgy, the musicians included fragments of Gregorian chant as well as several other works by Żebrowski. Thus, the Vespers conclude with the sequence Mittit ad Virginem, its verses sung alternately with the Polish hymn Zdrowaś bądź Maryja (“Hail Mary”). Żebrowski’s music bears the imprint of the Neapolitan style, where traces of Baroque language coexist with the first stirrings of Classicism.

The compline was written by Grzegorz Gerwazy Gorczycki, a composer two generations older, active mainly in Kraków during the first three decades of the eighteenth century. A Catholic priest and theologian, he was widely acclaimed after his death as the greatest Polish musician of his times. As long-serving chapel master at Wawel Cathedral, he devoted himself primarily to liturgical music. His Completorium is written in the Baroque stile moderno, for voices with instruments, featuring the brilliant sound of high trumpets (clarino).

The joyful psalms that open this cycle display a play of contrasts – hallmarks of the concertato style. These passages belong to the genre of the Baroque sacred concerto. In the hymn Te lucis ante terminum, traditional polyphony comes to the fore, while the responsory In manus tuas is rich in expressive depth. The work closes with a radiant setting of Simeon’s canticle, a burst of energy with which to begin a new week—perhaps just as it once inspired the Pauline monks of the eighteenth century.