Anthology of Renaissance Polyphony

Thursday, September 26, 2019, 7:00 PM

  • Thursday, September 26, 2019, 7:00 PM
  • Thursday, October 10, 2019, 7:00 PM
  • Thursday, October 31, 2019, 7:00 PM
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Two important figures of the fourth generatio of Franco-Flemish School of composers Adrian Willaert and Nicolas Gombert as well as compositeur ordinaire du roi Clément Janequin, Orlando di Lasso, one of the most prolific composers in the history of music, great creator of madrigals with a complicated personal life Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa and "Orpheus from Amsterdam" Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck – works of the outstanding composers of the Renaissance will resound again this autumn at the Church of St Catherine thanks to Capella Cracoviensis. During the concerts of the Anthology of Renaissance Polyphony cycle, the ensemble performs with excellent guests, specialists in the field of early music, including Robert Hollingworth and Oltremontano ensemble.

26 September 2019, 7pm
Anthology of Renaissance Polyphony IV
Capella Cracoviensis vocal ensemble
Robert Hollingworth (conductor)
Nicolas Gombert:
Media vita
Je prens congie de mes amours
J’ay mis mon Coeur
Ave Regina caelorum
Clément Janequin:
Ce moys de may
Au verd boys
Toutes les nuits
Frère Thibault
Du beau tetin
Assouvy suis
Or vien ça
Adrian Willaert:
Qual dolcezza giamai
Cingari simo
Lauda Ierusalem
Andrea Gabrieli: Sassi, palae
Tickets: PLN 20

10 October 2019, 7pm
Anthology of Renaissance Polyphony V
Capella Cracoviensis vocal ensemble
Jan Tomasz Adamus (conductor)

Orlando di Lasso: Lagrime di San Pietro
Tickets: PLN 20

31 October 2019, 7pm
Anthology of Renaissance Polyphony VI
Capella Cracoviensis vocal ensemble
Oltremontano Antwerpen
Wim Becu (trombone, conductor)
Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck:
Mein junges Leben hat ein End
Ave maris stella
Cantate Domino canticum novum
Dillegam te Domini
O Dieu, mon honneur et ma gloire
Mein junges Leben hat ein End
Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa:
O vos omnes
Gagliarda del Principe di Venosa
O dolorosa gioia
Ricercare
Moro lasso al mio duolo
Sepulto Domino
Giovanni Gabrieli:
In ecclesiis (Symphoniae Sacrae, Liber secundus, 1615)
Canzon II (Canzoni et Sonate,… Venetia 1615)
KyrieChristeKyrie (Symphoniae Sacrae, Liber secundus, 1615)
Canzon III (Canzoni et Sonate,… Venetia 1615)
Buccinate in neomenia tubae (Symphoniae Sacrae, Liber secundus, 1615)

rezerwacje / bookings: +48 721 620 833 (pn.-pt. 9.00-14.00 / Mon-Fri 9am-2pm)

Church of St Catherine and St Margaret

ul. Augustiańska 7

Here, local history is perfectly intertwined with that of the nation: its heyday and tragedies, highs and lows. From its earliest days – intermittently, though – St Catherine’s Church has been in the care of the Augustinian Order.

The church owes its origin to fairly dramatic circumstances, a tale that includes lechery, crime, a curse, and royal penance. The soft spot King Casimir the Great (Kazimierz Wielki) had for the fairer sex was denounced by the Bishop of Kraków, Jan Bodzanta, who sent his envoy in the person of the cathedral vicar, Marcin Baryczka to admonish the king about the matter. The enraged monarch had the messenger drowned in an ice-hole in the Vistula. Repenting his deed, the king later turned to Pope Clement VI to lift the anathema. The Holy Father absolved him and ordered an appropriate penance: the construction of a number of churches, including that of St Catherine and St Margaret in Kraków in the place where the body of the drowned priest surfaced. This is how the bishop’s curse indirectly contributed not only to Kraków but also to Polish sacred architecture.

The King entrusted the construction of the Gothic church (around 1343) to the Augustinian Order, which has retained custody of the building to this day. Although the construction was never finished (originally, the edifice was to be 12.5 m (41 ft) longer, the planned towers were never fully built, nor has the façade been finished), earthquakes destroyed, among others, the roof and ceiling of the chancel, and floods and fires raged in the church, it has retained its magnificent Gothic character. Adjacent to the south is a porch and the Chapel of St Monica (mother of St Augustine) in what was to be the ground floor of one of the towers, doubling as a place of prayer of the Augustinian nuns from the convent on the other side of Skałeczna Street. The covered walkway that connects the two structures provides a characteristically picturesque accent.

The process of restoring the church, terminated after the third partition of Poland and designed among others for military storehouses, began in the mid-19th century, and – with only short breaks – continues into our times.

Linked to St Catherine’s is the story of a Kraków monk, Isaiah (Izajasz) Boner. Allegedly, the power of this servant of God (the process of his beatification is still far from completed) is capable of unmasking women of easy virtue. For it so happened that when the “shameless wenches” visiting the grave of Isaiah stood on the slab of his grave, a tremor ran through it, which is how the saint disclosed their profession.

In our times, members of the congregation visiting the church on the 22nd day of each month are often seen carrying a rose that they lay down by the sculpture and relics of St Rita, the patron saint of hopeless cases, for whom a rose would always blossom (even in winter) in the garden of the Convent of the Augustinian Nuns in Cascia, bringing relief from suffering and illness.

Be sure to see:

  • late-renaissance tomb of Spytek Jordan in southern aisle
  • spacious cloisters with 15th and 16th-century paintings and epitaphs
  • Our Lady of Consolation, a 16th century mural, one of Poland’s oldest miraculous images of the Blessed Virgin (the chapel in the cloister)

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