photo: László Mudra

This concert, which offers a fitting programme for Good Friday, will open with a sacred work from Joseph Haydn. Hadyn wrote several versions of the composition, which was commissioned by a church in Cadiz to mark the highlight of the Christian calendar. The seven words of the title actually refer to the final seven utterances of Christ: from the prayer of “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do,” to “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit”, spoken with his final breath. In Hadyn’s work, the death of the Redeemer is followed by an earthquake – the literal shaking of the world. Two excerpts from the final Wagnerian masterpiece, Parsifal, are also an apt choice for the events of Good Friday. The prelude to Parsifal’s first act will be followed by the third-act orchestral excerpt Good Friday Spell, which elevates the initially painful contradiction, set against nature’s spring blossom, into the sphere of wondrous mystery, and there finds resolution. An explanation is offered on stage through the words of the sage Gurnemanz:

“The dew is the tear of repentance,

the foliage, the flower, the grass

that lends it its beauty,

what else could cause it?

Rejoice every creature of creation,

in the celebration of the Redeemer...”