On the Road: Schütz's "Exequien" in the Zips

EXPORT I | Music of the Protestant Diaspora around 1650

18:30 | A word before the concert... with Prof. Dr. Silke Leopold
Introduction to the concert "On the Road: Schütz's Exequien in the Zips"

In the 17th century, the Zips (Spiš) region was a culturally rich transit space: caught between the Holy Roman Empire, the Kingdom of Hungary, and the pull of Italian madrigal art, bound together by Lutheran networks, long-distance trade routes, and the quiet work of copyists. A tablature preserving parts of the "Musikalische Exequien" SWV 279-281 and the "Psalmen Davids" SWV 22-47 has survived in Levoča, Slovakia. Johann Schimrack (d. 1657) absorbed the works of his Dresden colleague in this way - and then composed his own pieces in a related style. Alongside Schimrack, Samuel Marckfelner (1621-1674) also steps into the European soundscape of the Schütz era.

Ensemble Le Nuove Musiche (Bratislava) and Capella dell'Halla (Bad Reichenhall) take Schimrack's tablature as the starting point for an artistic exploration. Works by Zips composers enter into dialogue with Heinrich Schütz's "Exequien", making audible the traces of a living practice that thought and acted through exchange.