Concert

Compositions for the death and funeral of the Habsburg emperors by Marc’Antonio Ziani and Emperor Leopold I.

In this concert we convey an impression of the moving splendour of the funeral music at the imperial court of Leopold I. One month after the death of the ruler, the solemn three-day exequies were held, i.e. the funeral ceremonies in front of a mourning scaffold (castrum doloris) with the empty coffin in the Augustinian Church. The body had already been buried in the Capuchin crypt three days after the death; the heart and entrails were traditionally buried separately, the former in the crypt of St Stephen’s Cathedral, the latter in the Loreto Chapel of St Augustine’s Church. Three nights in a row, vigils were held as part of the public exequies, nightly services during which psalms, responsories and readings were sung “musicaliter”. The Lectiones were set to the moving music of the vice-chapel master Marc’Antonio Ziani. The musically highly educated Leopold had composed such funeral lectiones for his second wife Claudia Felix von Tirol, who died in 1676 after three happy years of marriage, and had already written a requiem for his first wife Margaretha Theresia in 1673.

Bonus: 18.15 introductory talk