OSL’s annual Bach Festival opens with a program crafted and conducted by Vox Luminis founder and artistic director Lionel Meunier, pairing J.S. Bach’s Psalm 51, Tilge, Höchster, meine Sünden (Cancel, Highest, my sins) with sacred motet and psalm settings for soprano and countertenor by Vivaldi. Bach composed Psalm 51 as an arrangement of Pergolesi’s popular Stabat Mater, substituting German text for Latin and expanding the instrumentation. His purpose for “Bach’s Stabat Mater,” whether as a musical exercise or for use in a liturgical setting, isn’t clear, and the piece remained little known until its rediscovery by scholars in the late 1940s. 

More information and tickets here.