Ziani: La Morte vinta sul Calvario

The Sepolcro is a piece of Good Friday music that was only performed in this form by the court chapel at the Habsburg imperial court in Vienna. In order to have splendid music on the festive days despite the ban on opera during Holy Week, oratorios were staged in front of the Holy Sepulchre that dealt theologically and poetically with the Passion of Christ without depicting the Passion itself. In 1706, it was the court kapellmeister Marc'Antonio Ziani who wrote magnificent "opera" music for Good Friday with his Sepolcro "La morte vinta sul Calvario". It features various allegorical figures such as "Faith", "Human Nature" and "The Soul of Adam", who enter into a rhetorical dispute with the "Devil", who rejoices in the death of Christ. Ziani's two-part work alternates between expressive recitatives and arias. The text is of great poetic power, underlined by Ziani's magnificent music, which is very colourful and rich in contrast with five-part string sections accompanied by cornetts, trombones and bassoons, with obligatory instrumental parts and sometimes sophisticated counterpoint.