Mozart first, with his Masonic Funeral Music: a poem of mourning, thus relating to suffering of the Virgin Mary in Arvo Pärt’s Stabat Mater, but which seems to elevate Janácek’s Glagolitic Mass in its vibrant affirmation of life.

Mozart’s funeral piece, dominated by woodwinds and composed in memory of two brethren from the Masonic lodge ‘Beneficence’ of which he was a member, is a remarkable concentration of expressive sorrow. Originally conceived for vocal trio and string trio, Arvo Pärt’s Stabat Mater, characteristic of his inimitable poetics of sound, seems to take distance from grief itself, transposing the emotion onto a broader spiritual plane. With his Glagolitic Mass, the title of which celebrates the eponymous early Slavic alphabet, Janácek turns the affirmation of faith into a pagan ritual, celebrating the energy of life and, implicitly, of the young Czech nation.