Bach & Khayyam

John-Sebastien Bach (1685 -1750) and Omar Khayyam (1048 -1131)
Imagine the unlikely meeting of two extraordinary people: the Persian poet and scholar Omar Khayyam (1048 – 1131) and the composer Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750).
A mathematician and astronomer, Omar Khayyam had a lasting influence on the West in the Middle Ages before being rediscovered in the 19th century for his quatrains, which sing of the beauty and importance of living in the present moment. Shrouded in mystery, his journey was fantasized by several authors, who even imagined a story of a mysterious pact.
Johann Sebastian Bach remains an undisputed musical genius to whom everyone still refers today. The famous German composer, who wrote some of the most beautiful works of Baroque music, nevertheless had a colorful existence, with the trials and tribulations of his love life, his many children and his pronounced taste for certain beverages, in particular beer and a drink that could hardly have been more luxurious at the time, coffee…
If they are both characterized by their free and original approach to life and to artistic creation, this musical program brings them together first and foremost because of their deep spirituality. Although more than 600 years separate them, their geniuses were destined to meet ; their vision of the world, a perfect blend of mastery of mathematics coupled with a high level of spirituality, brings these two men together in dialogue, tracing a path towards the sublime, towards light.
In this original program, Constantinople offers arrangements of some of Johann Sebastian Bach’s most beautiful and spiritual works and airs, in dialogue with poems by Omar Khayyam set to music by Kiya Tabassian and sung in Persian in response to Bach’s arias. Masters of the art of unusual encounters, the musicians of Constantinople welcome here Czech soprano Hana Blazikova, renowned for her interpretation of early music and baroque music, and together they create a meeting between these two great figures that, in the end, proves to be obvious.
« Maybe night is just the eyelid of day. »
Omar Khayyâm
“This gives rise to deeply moving moments in Bach’s songs from Schemellis Gesangbuch, as the original is simultaneously illuminated by new tonal colors. A little gem: Bist du bei mir, from Anna Magdalena’s music notebook, proves deeply touching in Blažíková’s clear, almost speech-like interpretation, while the small kemençe — with its nasal tone reminiscent of an oboe — enters into dialogue with her.” – Neue Welt, March 2025
On Stage
Bach & Khayyam in concerts
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