Judaism in Baroque music
Collegium Musicum ’23 © Mario Dingethal
Tehila Nini Goldstein (soprano)
Collegium Musicum'23: Nadja Zwiener (musical director and baroque violin), Gundula Mantu (baroque violin), Magdalena Schenk-Bader (viola), Anna Reisener (baroque cello), Alexander von Heißen (harpsichord)
Tickets: Advance booking on 0345 500 90-103; museum box office; evening box office
Reserved concert tickets must be collected from the museum box office up to one hour before the start of the event.
15,00 € / reduced 10,00 €
The programme sheds light on the influence of Judaism in music of the Baroque era from various angles and shows the close links between Christian and Jewish history and music.
In the 16th and early 17th centuries, the ducal court of the Gonzaga family in Mantua received Jewish musicians, including Salomone Rossi, who not only wrote choral songs in Hebrew for the synagogue in Mantua, but also composed highly ornate instrumental chamber music. Old Testament themes increasingly found their way into the instrumental music of non-Jewish composers, for example in the biblical sonatas of the Leipzig Thomaskantor Johann Kuhnau, who turned the battle of David against Goliath into a magnificent sound painting on the harpsichord. In 18th century Amsterdam, operas and cantatas are performed in the parlours of wealthy Portuguese-Jewish families. With the works of Cristiano Giuseppe Lidarti, these genres reached the synagogue, which became the venue for the performance of Handel's Esther HWV50 in Hebrew in 1759.
During the Baroque period, Jewish cultural life produced numerous stylistic devices that can be traced back to non-Jewish patterns, including the introduction of vocal and instrumental polyphony. In turn, texts from the Old Testament and thus the shared culture with Judaism had a great influence on Christian musical life.