Within the framework of the remembrances of the end of the World War I. France and Czech Republic are going to offer a concert to the Pope, an exceptional evening on October 25th of this year.
This concert organized by Château de Versailles Spectacles in the Cathedral Saint Jean de Latran in Rome will be placed under the sign of the peace.

In the Program : TE DEUM BY LULLY & MISSA SALISBURGENSIS BY BIBER

Václav Luks, the talented Prague conductor of Collegium 1704 takes up the challenge of reviving these works of considerable proportions.

With his Te Deum the Superintendent of the King’s Music signed a major score that would set the “official” genre for a century. On 9 September 1677, in the Fontainebleau Chapel, Lully conducted his Te Deum, composed for the christening of his oldest son, in front of Louis XIV. The work reflects the importance of the event: a masterpiece of musical architecture, the work calls for a large number of musicians and for trumpets and cymbals. This Te Deum was the most often performed religious work of the time: princely weddings, military victories, king’s recovery… Of the dozen performances of the Te Deum conducted by Lully, history remembers the one in the Feuillants church, which caused the composer’s death: when beating the tempo, he pierced his foot with the tip of his cane.

In 1682, the powerful Archbishop of Salzburg, Primate of Germania and Prince of a sovereign state respected all over Europe decided to organise a grand celebration for the 1100th anniversary of the foundation of the archdiocese of Salzburg. He organised an array of official and religious ceremonies of a scope never seen before in the city, or since. For this exceptional occasion that was to demonstrate the historical seniority of Salzburg over all German speaking states, a full decade was necessary to design incredibly rich parade costumes, gold, silver and silver- gilt tableware for banquets and sacred vessels, splendidly wrought weapons set with gems, magnificent decoration for the city’s major monuments, finish the construction of the cathedral and finally create an exceptional musical ceremony for the grand religious commemorative celebration, Catholic Salzburg had to show its power to the protestant states it combatted.

All the musicians working for the Archbishop set to work, and Biber composed the Missa Salisburgensis, which was so exceptional that he was appointed Court’s Kapellmeister two years later. The pomp deployed is unheard of: the music is written for fifty-three different voices and must be distributed in space in six choirs. The impressive trumpet and percussion effects, marking the solemnity of the ceremony, resounded splendidly in the cathedral, responding to religious invocations and angelic choruses, building a musical monument for the future. This “immense” music is evidently almost never performed, as it requires such numbers, so much preparation time, such precision from musicians and conductor, but above all a setting to perform and magnify this spatialised music.

Václav Luks, the talented Prague conductor of Collegium 1704 takes up the challenge of reviving these works of considerable proportions.