Íliber Ensemble premieres an imaginary cantata on Bach's Seven Last Words

The MUSAG Festival is hosting this project, which imagines what a composition by Bach based on the Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross might have been like.

The Granada-based ensemble will present an imagined reconstruction of Bach's Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross on October 18th, crafted from fragments of the composer's own works. This production, a project of the Granada Sacred Music Festival (MUSAG), of which Íliber Ensemble is the permanent resident ensemble, will take place in the Real Monasterio de San Jerónimo in Granada.

The project proposes a hypothetical reconstruction of what Bach's approach to setting the Seven Last Words to music might have entailed, using his musical universe as a starting point to generate an imaginary cantata around this theme. To this end, passages from Bach's works containing these texts have been located and assembled according to strict structural, harmonic, and narrative criteria. Far from being a simple anthology of pieces, the aim has been to construct a coherent expressive and narrative arc in both theological and musical terms, resulting in a succession of recitatives, arias, choruses, and chorales that respect the internal dramaturgy that might have guided a composition of this kind.

Íliber Ensemble will tackle this 'premiere' together with the Coro del Friuli Venezia Giulia and a cast of soloists including Sophie Negoïta, Anthea Pichanick, Jakob Pilgram and Christian Wagner, under the direction of Darío Tamayo. The concert will commemorate the 340th anniversary of Bach's birth and will be recorded by Radio Clásica RNE.