Prolog: Vespers & Dreams

A contemplative pre-opening of this year's Beethovenfest Bonn in the atmospheric ambience of Bonn Minster: the CONTINUUM ensemble dreams across the distance of 400 years. The musicians and singers alternate between Claudio Monteverdi's sensual and colorful "Vespers for the Virgin Mary" and Missy Mazzoli's "Vespers for a New Dark Age" (2014). The American composer calls her new vespers a piece of "exploding church music": a rush of sound made up of chords, rhythms and fragile female voices that combine to create enchantingly beautiful textures. Gambist Liam Byrne has specially rearranged the score for the historical instruments of the Ensemble CONTINUUM. Mazzoli sets poetry by Matthew Zapruder about humanity, death and God in a technologized present. Here old meets new, church rites meet universal questions about the meaning of humanity and togetherness.

"What fascinates me about Missy Mazzoli is that she writes very emotional and touching music despite the complexity of tonality and rhythm. Monteverdi also achieved this 400 years earlier. As a result, these two pieces combine perfectly for me. In our concert, we switch seamlessly from the introit and the pleading 'Domine ad adiuvandum' by Monteverdi to Mazzoli and back again. At the end, you get the feeling that these two pieces couldn't fit together better." - Elina Albach, artistic director of CONTINUUM

In cooperation with the Cathedral Basilica of St. Martin

Concert recording by Deutschlandfunk