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 four-part organ work quattro quadri focuses on the Black Death.

The Venetians desperately prayed for the mediation of saints in order to avert this punishment from God. As a symbol of gratitude for the eventual redemption, the city built five devotional churches, including one for Job and one for Saint Sebastian. Quattro quadri depicts four pivotal moments of Sebastian’s life in a more or less abstract way, as immortalized by Paolo Veronese, painter of the San Sebastiano. The play thus takes a look at the complex relationship between Venice and its decay, a relationship that oscillates between joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, life and death.

Marcel Verheggen organ
Richard Rijnvos Quattro Quadri

Source : Musica Sacra Web Site