Louis Lewandowski Festival 2016

In 1622 the Italian-Jewish composer Salamone Rossi published a collection of sacred choral music in Hebrew. The “Songs of Solomon” were the first of their kind from the Renaissance and early Baroque, but were to be heard in the synagogue.

Other composers, including Carlo Grossi, Lodovico Saladin, Giuseppe Vita Clave and Christiano Giuseppe Lidarti. The sixth Louis Lewandowski Festival honours the contributions of these pioneers. Her compositions for Jewish worship, paraliturgical celebrations and Jewish brotherhoods paved the way for Louis Lewandowski and his contemporaries of the 19th century.

In 1622 the Italian-Jewish composer Salamone Rossi published a collection of polyphonic music for the synagogue. It was a radical innovation; no one had ever composed such choir music in Hebrew for the Jewish service. These 33 motets are not only a historical curiosity, they are also comparable to the best madrigals and motets of the masters of the early baroque. The sixth Louis Lewandowski Festival offers music by Salamone Rossi and other composers who followed him and created choral and instrumental music for the synagogue, for Jewish brotherhoods and for paraliturgical celebrations.