PROGRAMMES

In 586 BC, the prophet Jeremiah bewails the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple. His gloomy texts are timeless because war and destruction are of all times. During the turbulent sixteenth century, impressive polyphonic settings of these laments were written. 500 years ago, these polyphonic lamentations appeared in print for the first time. In 1506, The Italian printer Petrucci published two books of Jeremiah's polyphonic lamentations. This was the beginning of the development of a much-loved genre in that century, which reached its climax in the expressive lamentations by Orlandus Lassus. The quartet sets these old sorrowful laments in a broader context. Between the lamentations, we hear scraps of one Da Costa’s Battle of Nieuwpoort, the sound of gas bombs during the first World War, Reverend Buskes after the bombing of Rotterdam, President Truman on Hiroshima, Reverend Martin Luther King on Vietnam and a CNN reporter describing the events in New York on 11 September 2001. Thus, the lamentations are given a modern perspective, creating a moment of reflection and remembrance, both in musical and ethical terms.