Vincent Van Gogh, detail from The Starry Night, 1889
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Our concert design begins with two collections of miniatures—Leonhard Lechner’s Deutsche Sprüche von Leben und Tod (1606) and Hugo Distler’s Totentanz (c.1935)—separated by centuries, but complementary in their efforts to describe how the world works, and how to have hope. Each consists of tiny, koan-like pieces on a single thought or intuition. We weave these pieces together with larger motets from J.H. Schein’s magnificent Fontana d’Israel (1623) and organ meditations from Yale’s Neumeister manuscript by J.S. Bach and his cousin Johann Michael Bach. Over and again we are offered lessons of how to find light in the midst of gloom, and how to shine such light out to the world.
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David Parsons, organ
Circa 1600 Saturday, April 27, 8PM BachGrounder pre-concert talk, 7:25PM Sunday, April 28, 3PM BachGrounder pre-concert talk, 2:25PM SCHROEDER HALL 
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