INVICTISSIMO AC POTENTISSIMO REGI POLONIAE

King Stephen Báthory went down in Polish history as an outstanding politician and a prudent ruler. Alongside his military and diplomatic successes, his achievements included intensive efforts to support the development of Polish art and science. However, few testimonies exist concerning the king’s musical interests, although it is known that he maintained a forty-member court chapel. The monarch must have valued polyphonic music, since the Italian composer Teodoro Riccio, who was in the service of the Prussian Duke George Frederick, dedicated his Liber primus missarum (1579) to “the most invincible and powerful Stephen, King of Poland […]” (“invictissimo ac potentissimo Stephano Regi Poloniae […]”). This gift was no coincidence and was intended to strengthen relations between Prussia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, giving us an idea of the important role attributed at that time to musical composition in shaping international relations.

The publication, printed in 1579 at Osterberger’s workshop in Königsberg, contains six complete settings of the ordinarium missae, among them the six-voice Missa vidi turbam magnam. The Mass was based on musical material from a motet previously composed by Riccio, which – preceded by a Gregorian offertory – will open the concert programme. The little-known body of work of the composer from Brescia reveals a broad spectrum of expressive possibilities within Renaissance polyphony: the mastery of individual vocal lines, the variability of their configurations, and the sophistication of polyphonic textures. The musical image of the liturgy from the time of the Polish “Golden Age” is complemented by traditional plainchants, representing the living tradition of the Church, and by Mikołaj Zieleński’s five-voice motet Levavi oculos meos in montes. The program concludes with two earlier Marian compositions: Ave mater o Maria, of Burgundian-Netherlandish provenance, preserved in one of the most valuable Polish treasures of musical heritage – the medieval manuscript Kras 52, and the five-voice motet Intemerata Dei Mater by Johannes Ockeghem, the Franco-Flemish master of 15th-century polyphony (c. 1410–1497).

Marta Dziewanowska-Pachowska

PROGRAM

Anonim – De profundis clamavi (Gregorian offertory)  

Teodoro Riccio (c. 1540–after 1600) – Vidi turbam magnam  

Anonim – Salvum fac populum tuum (Gregorian gradual)  

Teodoro Riccio (c. 1540–after 1600) – Missa vidi turbam magnam – Kyrie  

Teodoro Riccio (c. 1540–after 1600) – Missa vidi turbam magnam – Gloria  

Anonim – Alleluia. De profundis clamavi (Gregorian alleluia)  

Teodoro Riccio (c. 1540–after 1600) – Missa vidi turbam magnam – Credo  

Anonim – Ad te levavi oculos meos (Gregorian tractus)  

Mikołaj Zieleński (c. 1560–c. 1620) – Levavi oculos meos in montes  

Teodoro Riccio (c. 1540–after 1600) – Missa vidi turbam magnam – Sanctus  

Teodoro Riccio (c. 1540–after 1600) – Missa vidi turbam magnam – Agnus Dei  

Anonim – Ave mater o Maria (Kras 52)  

Johannes Ockeghem (c. 1410–1497) – Intemerata Dei Mater

PERFORMERS

PÓŁ.CHÓR VOCAL ENSEMBLE:

ALEKSANDRA KNAPIŃSKA
KAROLINA ZAJĄC
KRZYSZTOF TRUSKOWSKI
ANTONI KRASOWSKI
ANTONI BALASIŃSKI
STANISŁAW NIEDŹWIEDŹ 

KAROL KNAPIŃSKI CONDUCTOR

Duration: approx. 1h (no intermission)

The seats in the auditorium are not numbered.