Bohemian composer Jan Dismas Zelenka is a strong candidate for the greatest rediscovery of the Baroque revival. He worked for most of his career in Dresden (the booklet, in French and English, goes into a great deal of detail about the political determinants and musical implications of this fact), and Bach, who didn't admire many composers, admired him. Each new Zelenka work that emerges, if competently performed, seems to astonish, and I Penitenti al Sepolchro del Redentore, ZWV 63 (The Penitents at the Sepulchre of the ...
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Bohemian composer Jan Dismas Zelenka is a strong candidate for the greatest rediscovery of the Baroque revival. He worked for most of his career in Dresden (the booklet, in French and English, goes into a great deal of detail about the political determinants and musical implications of this fact), and Bach, who didn't admire many composers, admired him. Each new Zelenka work that emerges, if competently performed, seems to astonish, and I Penitenti al Sepolchro del Redentore, ZWV 63 (The Penitents at the Sepulchre of the Redeemer), composed late in Zelenka's career in 1736, is no exception. The work is a bit hard to get a grip on because of its odd genre. Annotator Vacláv Luks calls it a "sepolcro oratorio": it is a little religious semi-drama based on the idea that biblical figures, who may not (as in this case) actually meet in the Bible at all, gather at Christ's tomb and contemplate his divine mysteries. The benefit of this rather artificial device is that biblical stories can be massaged into...
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