WELCOME, KING OF HEAVEN!
Music for Palm Sunday
Concerto Copenhagen kicks off the Easter season alongside a group of young singers, who take us on a musical journey from melancholic, danceable rhythms and the absolution of sins to festive welcome music.
Easter is usually associated with Passion music, which depicts Jesus’ suffering and death. But in this concert, we will focus on the events that mark the beginning of Easter: Lent and Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem—namely, Palm Sunday.
We must go back to the spring of 1714 in Weimar, where the barely 30-year-old Johann Sebastian Bach had been promoted to Kapellmeister and was set to demonstrate his skills as a composer to the count, the court, and the congregation with the cantatas “Himmelskönig sei willkommen” and “Widerstehe doch der Sünde.”
In “Widerstehe doch der Sünde,” both musicians and audience must resist the temptations of sin in our life here on earth. The music paints a musical picture of the danger of sin—that which we must fight against in order to receive eternal life in heaven. But it also shows how tempting and easy it would be to surrender to something so alluring. “So it’s not just ugly but also fantastically beautiful at the same time—in a sensual and almost erotic way,” Lars Ulrik Mortensen describes the music.
In “Himmelskönig sei willkommen,” we encounter Jesus on his way into Jerusalem, riding on a donkey. He is met by a crowd of people who welcome him with palm branches and song. Like Palm Sunday, the cantata is festive and cheerful, with the suffering and death of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday only faintly foreshadowed in the distance. A striking depiction of Jesus’ humble yet dignified entry into Jerusalem.
The concert opens with Telemann’s Overture Suite in A minor. In the spring of 1714, Telemann had just become the godfather of J.S. Bach’s newborn SUN, Carl Philipp Emanuel. Despite the Overture Suite’s dancing rhythms in the French style, it is as if the music never truly becomes cheerful, but remains melancholic—as a reminder of what awaits on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, and therefore fitting as an introduction not only to this concert, but also to Easter.
Concerto Copenhagen, under the direction of Lars Ulrik Mortensen, is looking forward to performing
celebrating Easter with a group of young, talented singers: soprano Anna Orlowicz Miilmann, countertenor Steffen Jespersen, tenor Mathias Monrad Møller, and bass Joakim Larsson.