Sun, 9. 10. 2022, 18.00

LUX AETERNA

Venue: Church of the Virgin Mary Help of Christians, Zlín Jižní Svahy  | 

LUX AETERNA

Let light perpetual shine upon them, O Lord

May they remain with your saints in eternity, for You are good.

Grant them eternal peace, O Lord

And let light perpetual shine upon them.

Lux Aeterna, the Communion antiphon, is part of the Requiem, the mass for the dead.  Though this may seem to be a gloomy or even depressing subject, the opposite is the case. The Lux Aeterna, with its message of mercifulness, is the Requiem’s most hopeful part, overflowing with the kind of deep emotion that has inspired composers for centuries to create works full of light and delicate beauty. 

The Czech Ensemble Baroque’s concert in the Church of the Virgin Mary Help of Christians will begin with one of the best-known pieces ever - Gregorio Allegri’s ‘falsobordone’ musical setting of Psalm 50, the Miserere mei.  Many listeners know this choral work for its very high top C, sung by one voice in a small choir, and also for the many myths that accompany its performance by the Sistine Chapel choir.

Several Lux Aeterna antiphon settings followed over the course of two centuries by the old masters such as Tomás Luis de Victoria and Giovanni Francesco Anerio, and by the modern composers Ēriks Ešenvalds and Maurice Duruflé. The most extensive work in tonight’s concert is the Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary by Henry Purcell, the prolific English composer of vocal and other works.

The people who walk in darkness will see a great light; those who dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light will shine.

The Czech Ensemble Baroque’s concert also culminates fittingly in “eternal light” which takes the listeners to paradise, among the angels, in the form of Edward Elgar’s famed Lux Aeterna, and then  the antiphon In Paradisum, written specially for this choir by the singer and composer Jakub Kubín, a longstanding member of the choir.