In the late Baroque, a musical synthesis of the whole era, heterogeneous and multi-faceted, was accomplished. The flourishing of polyphony and the emergence of many new genres influenced the development of formal solutions emerging in the following centuries, based on the achievements of Baroque artists. Wrocław Baroque Orchestra conducted by Jarosław Thiel will present the works of three late-Baroque composers – Jan Dismas Zelenka, Johann Friedrich Fasch, and Johann Sebastian Bach.

Zelenka, although known mainly for his religious compositions, wrote works intended for instrumental line-ups too, but they are a rather small part of his legacy. Also known as the “Catholic Bach”, the artist spent most of his life at the court of Augustus II, where he was responsible for the musical setting of Catholic celebrations. His sacred works are characterized by balance and sublime mood, but in Zelenka’s work we can also find pieces characterized by extraordinary virtuosity and melodiousness, comparable with the works of Antonio Vivaldi. The concert will feature the lively Simphonie à 8 concertanti – a composition created in 1723, when Zelenka was writing his greatest works. In tonight’s programme, it precedes the Ouvertürensuite by Johann Friedrich Fasch, whose legacy is a symbolic link between the late Baroque and Classicism. Although most of his works remained unpublished during his lifetime, they were part of a widely performed repertoire at the time. The importance of Fasch for the history of music was emphasized at the beginning of the 20th century by the outstanding German musicologist Hugo Riemann, who compared him to Johann Sebastian Bach.

The Orchestral Suite No. 1 in C major by the Leipzig Cantor comes from the collection of four orchestral suites BWV 1066–1069. In French, their original title is ouvertures, which refers to the overtures opening each suite, followed by a series of stylized court dances usually in the same key. This composition is in the style of radiant and solemn dance music, like the suites created by Jean Baptiste Lully at the court of the Sun King Louis XIV.