Trauerode

Monarchs seldom married for love, as testified by August the Strong and Christiane Eberhardine. While her husband transformed Dresden into a Baroque playground for the rich and famous – and paid little heed to his marriage vows – the Electress preferred to pray, especially when August turned Catholic for political reasons. They called her Sachsens Betsäule, Saxony’s pillar of prayer, and she became a national heroine for her Protestantism.

On Christiane Eberhardine’s death, Bach wrote a richly instrumented mourning cantata for the university of Leipzig, which is one of his most moving funeral odes. August was commemorated in turn in Dresden, by Jan Dismas Zelenka, whose extravagant Officium receives a colourful interpretation in the hands of Czech conductor Václav Luks. Following his impressive St Matthew Passion in 2017, he returns to us for this dramatic double portrait.