The work of Johann Sebastian Bach will be the axis of the NFM Choir concert conducted by Jurģis Cābulis. The music of Bach, who is rightly considered one of the greatest geniuses in the history of music, this time will be presented through the prism of other artists’ choral works.

The programme features three pieces by the Leipzig cantor. These will be two serious, maybe even a bit raw, motets – Komm, Jesu, komm BWV 229 to the text of Paul Thymich and Lobet den Herrn Alle Heiden BWV 230 with the words of Psalm 117. In 1913, Richard Strauss drew on the tradition of writing motets, composing the Deutsche Motette op. 62. The theme of this work, written of a choir divided into sixteen parts and four solo voices, is the contemplation of a mountain landscape. Strauss used a Romantic text by Friedrich Rückert in his work.

We will also listen to a Romantic variation on Bach’s Ave Maria, the Prelude in C major from Das Wohltemperierte Klavier, arranged by Charles Gounod, the French composer of the Romantic era. The artists will also present the Immortal Bach op. 153 from 1988. It is a work of the Norwegian composer Knut Nystedt, based on Bach’s Komm, süßer Tod BWV 478. This piece is performed by a choir divided into several sections, but each of them sings at a different pace, which causes many layers of sound to overlap. Like the works of Bach and Strauss included in the concert programme, the cheerful Abendlied op. 69 by Joseph Rheinberger is also a motet and the most popular composition of this German artist of the Romantic period. Robert Lucas de Pearsall, an English composer active in the first half of the 19th century, was inspired by music of the past. His Lay a Garland is a travesty referring to the Renaissance. Blagosloven jesi Gospody from The All-Night Vigil op. 37 by Sergei Rachmaninoff will take the listeners to a completely different world, inspired by the solemn world of church music. The programme also includes compositions by two Latvian composers little known in Poland, from the same country as maestro Cābulis, who conducts the concert. The author of the slightly melancholic song Brīnos es (‘I wonder’) is Alfrēds Kalniņš, a composer active in the first half of the 20th century. The next generation of Latvian composers is represented by Bruno Skulte, the author of a piece entitled Aijā (‘Just in time’).