In the Midst of Life ...

Description

Baroque brilliance and apocalyptic vision with the Tablater Concert Choir St. Gallen. "In the midst of life we are in death": This verse is at the center of the "Funeral Sentences" by Henry Purcell, composed in 1695 for the funeral of Queen Mary and performed again a few months later for Purcell's own death. Almost simultaneously, Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber composed the Requiem in F in Salzburg – a partly intimate, partly almost dance-like engagement with the funeral liturgy as a tribute to the living. The counterpoint is formed by contemporary choral pieces: "The Holy Ghost" by Latvian composer Ēriks Ešenvalds and "De Visione Duodecima" by Viennese Wolfgang Sauseng based on words by Hildegard of Bingen. With its 2026 program, the Tablater Concert Choir St. Gallen continues its path of performing works outside the mainstream repertoire, intelligently linking Baroque and contemporary music and building bridges to the audience - in four concerts in Teufen, Weinfelden, Rorschach, and St. Gallen. In addition to the choir, five young vocal soloists participate (Antonia Exter and Salome Cavegn, soprano, Luca Maria Caelers, alto, Yves Ehrsam, tenor, and Leon Moser, bass). They are accompanied by Capella Castorea on original instruments, with concertmaster Elisabeth Kohler and organist Marie-Louise Dähler. The program invites you to immerse yourself in the trombone-bright Baroque era with its knowledge of the transience of all earthly things – and in the shimmering clusters of Hildegard's cosmic apocalyptic vision.