Capella Cracoviensis: Laboratory

Wednesday, June 7, 2023, 4:00 PM

  • Wednesday, June 7, 2023, 4:00 PM
  • Wednesday, June 14, 2023, 4:00 PM
  • Wednesday, June 21, 2023, 4:00 PM
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Capella Cracoviensis presents a cycle of open concerts at the Dominican Basilica. The musical Laboratories will be an occasion to listen to the polyphony music of Renaissance and Baroque composers: Lassus, Palestrina, Monteverdi and Bach, among the others. Music will resound in its natural context and space.

Wednesday 7 June 2023, 4pm
Laboratory I / Palestrina
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina O salutaris Hostia
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina Missa Papae Marcelli
Gioacchino Rossini O salutaris Hostia
Jacobus Gallus O salutaris Hostia
Jolanta Kowalska-Pawlikowska
soprano
Łukasz Dulewicz alto
Dominik Czernik Szczepan Kosior tenor
Sebastian Szumski Marek Opaska bass

Wednesday 14 June 2023, 4pm
Laboratory II / Bach
Tomas Luis de Victoria Ave Maria a 8
Johann Sebastian Bach Komm Jesu, komm
Johann Sebastian Bach Jesu meine Freude
Orlando di Lasso Salve Regina a 8
Michalina Bienkiewicz Magdalena Łukawska soprano
Łukasz Dulewicz Matylda Staśto-Kotuła alto
Dominik Czernik Szczepan Kosior tenor
Marek Opaska Przemysław Józef Bałka bass

Wednesday 21 June 2023, 4pm
Laboratory III / Monteverdi
Claudio Monteverdi Missa in illo tempore
Orlando di Lasso O mors quam amara est memoria tua – O mors bonum est judicium tuum
Orlando di Lasso In principio erat verbum
Jolanta Kowalska-Pawlikowska Magdalena Łukawska soprano
Matylda Staśto-Kotuła alto
Piotr Szewczyk Szczepan Kosior tenor
Przemysław Józef Bałka bass

Admission free, the church door remains open during the concert

For whom: for seniors
Other: free admission

Dominican Church

ul. Stolarska 12

Although repeatedly destroyed by fire, this church still contains splendid treasures of art and architecture, traces of grandeur of powerful Kraków families and merchant guilds, and precious devotional objects.

Standing previously on this spot was the parish Church of the Holy Trinity. It was entrusted to the Dominicans on their arrival in the city in 1222, and the parish was transferred to St Mary’s Church. After the demolition by the Tatars in the mid-13th century, the construction of a new Gothic church began and it lasted for several decades. In 1462, a fire broke out inside: according to legend it was caused by the Dominican themselves, as they dabbled in alchemy and arcane practices, including the fabrication of gold. Over the following centuries, chapels built by Kraków guilds and designed for families of benefactors were appended to both sides of the nave. A highlight of the church is the upstairs renaissance Chapel of St Hyacinth (Jacek), modelled on the Sigismund Chapel in Wawel. There are plenty of legends and tales that have developed around the figure of the saint, who brought the Dominican Order to Kraków. Some say that the monk could give curative powers to water, and banish Satan from the bodies of the possessed. They say that the wailing of devils and the gritting of teeth of fiends banished from human bodies can still be heard around the church.

The tragic fire that destroyed a large portion of the city in 1850 also affected the Dominican Church. After reconstruction it acquired a stylised front porch that conceals the original Gothic entrance decorated with delicate vegetal ornamentation. A late-Gothic bronze slab commemorating Filippo de Buonacorsi (known as Callimachus, teacher of the sons of King Casimir the Jagiellon (Kazimierz Jagiellończyk) has been preserved inside, designed by the sculptor of St Mary’s high altar – Veit Stoss (Wit Stwosz).

The 14th century cloisters adjacent to the church are adorned with portraits of bishops hailing from the Dominican Order and epitaphs transferred from the cemetery that was once situated by the church. They say souls suffering in Purgatory and pleading for prayers in their name surface in the monastery’s well at times.

Be sure to see:

  • cloisters with fragments of 13th-century architecture, refectory with a late Romanesque crypt
  • Gothic, renaissance, and baroque chapels; with the late-renaissance ones of St Hyacinth and Gonzaga Myszkowski family especially worth a visit

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