Bach Collegium San Diego
Bach at Noon will feature Lamentation II in F Major (for Wednesday in Holy Week) for alto voice, strings, and basso continuo. Lamentation II in F Major by Jan Dismas Zelenka Sonata II (from Armonico Tributo), Georg Muffat The Bohemian composer Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679-1745) spent most of his career in Dresden and is known to have won the admiration of J.S. Bach and Telemann. Like Bach, he was a composer of contrapuntal skill and seems to have shared an interest in the musical language of the late Baroque rather than in the modern trends of the mid-eighteenth century. Zelenka's Lamentations of Jeremiah, composed in 1722, include six Lamentations; two each for Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Saturday. These settings are a fluid mix of recitative and arioso, each one being rounded off by an extended, aria-like setting of the call to repentance, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, convertere ad Dominum Deum tuum (Jerusalem, return to the Lord thy God). Every setting is scored for a single voice, strings and continuo, with oboes added to the lamentations for Thursday and Friday, and recorders and a solo chalumeau for the Saturday pair.