The Latvian Radio Choir. Baroque and Renaissance Masterpieces

 

This year, the Early Music Festival will be introduced by the Latvian Radio Choir lead by conductor Kaspars Putniņš and the head organist of the Riga Cathedral Aigars Reinis, who was recently awarded the Latvian Grand Music Award. Tempered in a wide a wide-ranging repertoire, the experienced collective will this time turn their gaze to the music of the German Baroque cornerstone Johann Sebastian Bach, and two renaissance grandmasters – the Franco-Flemish School composer Josquin des Prez and the Avila-region native Spanish composer Tomás Luis de Victoria. Kaspars Putniņš explains: The music of all three of these artists is at the artistic pinnacle of European civilization. This music was created in times when the lives of people had even more dread and uncertainty than we have now, in this strange year. It is possible that the awareness of the fragility of life and vulnerability of man are the factors that allowed these authors to crate works of healing beauty and depth.”
Alongside one of the most famous 15th century motets - Josquin des Prez’s light-filled Ave Maria – the vaults of the Riga Cathedral will echo with Tomás Luis de Victoria’s otherworldly 1603 officium Missa pro defunctis – as well as Johann Sebastian Bach’s motet Komm, Jesu, komm and the Prelude and Fugue in E-flat major, BWV 552

Programme

Johann Sebastian Bach, Josquin des Prez, Tomás Luis de Victoria

Participants

Aigars REINIS, organ
The Latvian Radio Choir
Conductor Kaspars Putniņš

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