Adeamus

One of the greatest composers of the 16th century, Orlando di Lasso was born in c.1532 in Mons in Hainaut, a Franco-Flemish prov­ince. As a chorister he sung in St Nicholas church choir. Entering the service of the Sicilian viceroy Ferdi­nando Gonzaga he travelled to Italy in 1544, lived in Sicily and Milan, and later went on to Naples and Rome. He moved to Ant­werp in about 1555-56. At the invitation of the Bavarian Prince Albert V he joined the Munich court choir in 1556. He remained maestro di capella of the Bavarian court until his death.

The music here was written for performance during Holy Week at the splendid Catholic court of Dresden in 1722. The example of Dresden stirred Johann Sebastian Bach to some of his most Italianate flights of opera-like music, and the composer of the Holy Week responsories heard here, the Bohemian-born Jan Dismas Zelenka (whom Bach himself admired), had an experimental, progressive spirit in much of his music. All the more of a surprise, then, to find that these pieces are written in an almost antique style. Each of the three Matins services is divided into three Nocturns, each of which is provided with three pairs of readings or lessons (given in chant) and three responsories, polyphonically set for a small choir (the two-singers-to-a-part forces heard here were apparently typical), with orchestral strings mostly doubling the vocal lines.