The third weekend of September, the Maastricht city center is entirely dedicated to Musica Sacra Maastricht. The four-day festival is always based around an annually changing theme that fulfills the key role throughout the program, which consists of about 100 program components each year.

The story of Jephthah is contained in the Bible book of Judges, a chronicle of the tribes of Israel after they were led into the Promised Land.

In a fit of undue zeal, Jephthah, initially an outcast, vowed to sacrifice the first living being he encounters after a military victory. It will unfortunately be his only daughter, who welcomes the victor with music and dance and then accepts her inescapable fate.

Giacomo Carissimi, Roman initiator of the genre, composed this oratorio in the mid-seventeenth century. Half a century later, Johann Sebastian Bach wrote the cantata Gottes Zeit ist die supreme Zeit, often called Actus Tragicus. It is probably his oldest funeral cantata and has the smallest line-up in this genre: in addition to four voices and basso continuo, only two recorders and violas.

Ad Mosam Barock conducted by Huub Ehlen

Program:
Giacomo Carissimi Historia di Jephte
J.S. Bach Cantata ‘Gottes Zeit ist die supreme Zeit’ BWV106 (Actus Tragicus)

Source : Musica Sacra Web Site