Opening Recital: A Room with a View
Saturday, October 21, 8PM
Goethe at his window in Rome, 1787
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In celebration of Claudio Monteverdi’s birthday, we offer sacred and secular selections from the master’s two late volumes: The Madrigali guerrieri et amorosi (1638) and the Selva morale e spirituale (1640). Highlights include settings of Petrarch’s Hor che’l ciel e la terra, with its chilling opening passage, and the bittersweet Vago augelletto. Stunning instrumental works by Biagio Marini (including some of his ‘curiose e moderne inventioni’) and Dario Castello (especially works in ‘stil moderno’) provide further flavor and piquant views of the fertile northern Italian landscape.
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Christopher Fritzsche
Green Mountain Consort Live Oak Baroque Orchestra Saturday, October 21, 8PM BachGrounder pre-concert talk, 7:25PM SCHROEDER HALL |
Major Works Series: Monteverdi Vespers of 1610
Saturday, November 18, 8PM & Sunday, November 19, 7PM
Presentation of Mary in the Temple, 1534-38
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Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers is one of the landmarks of the early Baroque, and one of the most beloved of early-music masterworks. The Vespers music is for an unspecified Marian feast, and can be adapted to fit several liturgies. We present Monteverdi’s spectacular music (along with instrumental interludes and the appropriate chant) in the context of Second Vespers for the Presentation of Mary in the Temple. This joyous feast celebrates a legend from Mary’s childhood, in which the young girl bravely enters the temple to be brought up and educated for her role.
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Sonoma Bach Choir
Live Oak Baroque Orchestra Whole Noyse Saturday, November 18, 8PM BachGrounder pre-concert talk, 7:25PM Sunday, November 19, 7PM BachGrounder pre-concert talk, 6:25PM SCHROEDER HALL |
Early Music Christmas: Windows to the Soul
Saturday, December 16, 8PM & Sunday, December 17, 3PM
Presentation of Christ in the Temple, 1303-05
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For this our 6th annual Early Music Christmas, we take a slightly different tack, extending our exploration of the story back nine months to the moment when Mary receives the strange angelic tidings, and forward to the day known as Candlemas, when the infant Jesus is brought into the temple and is immediately recognized by the aged Simeon. A special focus of the concert is on ‘ways of knowing.’ How do we learn of great things? How do we take them into our minds and hearts? Our choice repertoire includes motets, mass movements, and a Magnificat by Italians and others working in Italy, including Monteverdi and Palestrina.
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Charles Rus, organ
Stephen Escher, cornetto Circa 1600 Saturday, December 16, 8PM BachGrounder pre-concert talk, 7:25PM Sunday, December 17, 3PM BachGrounder pre-concert talk, 2:25PM SCHROEDER HALL |
Midwinter Recital: A New Perfection in Music
Friday, January 19, 8PM
Three Musicians of the Medici Court, 1687
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In the 17th century, musicians from all over Europe flocked to Italy to learn the secrets of the exciting Italian style—for example, Marc-Antoine Charpentier studied in Rome and was much influenced by Giacomo Carissimi—while Italians such as Giovanni Battista Lulli ( Jean-Baptiste Lully) brought the new style to the brilliant French court. We offer motets by Carissimi and Charpentier; laments by Tartini and Clérambault; Italian-style pieces by Rebel and Leclair; and Francois Couperin’s Apothéose de Lully, a delightful fantasy in which Lully and the great violinist Arcangelo Corelli unite the two national styles in a ‘new perfection in music'.
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Jennifer Paulino, soprano
Live Oak Baroque Orchestra Friday, January 19, 8PM BachGrounder pre-concert talk, 7:25PM SCHROEDER HALL |
Organ Recital: All Roads Lead to Rome
Saturday, February 17, 8PM
Saint Cecilia at the Organ, 1671
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Rome in the Baroque period was home to a who’s who of musicians of the day, and was the backdrop for great musical innovation. Frescobaldi, Pasquini, and Froberger ushered in a new keyboard style, while Corelli and Vivaldi invented new genres for strings. This program will explore a variety of pieces with connections to Rome, including keyboard works and 18th century transcriptions of string concerti by J.S. Bach and Thomas Billington. Anne Laver, organ professor at Syracuse University, is reunited for this recital with Schroeder Hall’s Brombaugh organ, which she played during the instrument’s sojourn in Rochester, New York.
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Anne Laver, organ
Saturday, February 17, 8PM BachGrounder pre-concert talk, 7:25PM SCHROEDER HALL |
Sacred Realms: The Eternal City
Saturday, March 17, 8PM & Sunday, March 18, 3PM
Josquin Signature at Sistine Chapel
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In the late 15th century, the young Josquin Desprez spent a number of years in Rome as a member of the papal choir. We know this perhaps most surprisingly because he carved his name in one of the choir stalls in the Sistine Chapel. Our concert is inspired by Josquin’s Rome: Hearing and Composing in the Sistine Chapel, a wonderful (and readable!) book by Stanford scholar Jesse Rodin. We follow in Rodin’s steps by exploring music which Guillaume Dufay, Marbrianus de Orto, Josquin and later composers wrote for the papal chapel. Featuring Josquin’s Illibata Dei virgo nutrix and movements from his L’homme armé masses.
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Green Mountain Consort
Saturday, March 17, 8PM BachGrounder pre-concert talk, 7:25PM Sunday, March 18, 3PM BachGrounder pre-concert talk, 2:25PM ST. SERAPHIM CHURCH |
Early Music Uncorked: Musica Transalpina
Friday, April 20, 8PM & Saturday, April 21, 3PM
The Madrigal
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The flowering of the Italian madrigal is one of the great stories of music history. Beginning modestly in the early 16th century, the movement accelerated with the revival of the poetry of Petrarch, inspiring an avalanche of poetry and music which continued unabated into the 17th century. Enthusiasm in England for this intimate, expressive form was kindled by a 1588 publication entitled Musica Transalpina, containing ‘Englished’ madrigals by Luca Marenzio and others. We explore the music of Marenzio, its passage to England, and madrigals by English composers, including Thomas Morley, Thomas Weelkes and Peter Philips.
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Circa 1600
Friday, April 20, 8PM BachGrounder pre-concert talk, 7:25PM Saturday, April 21, 3PM BachGrounder pre-concert talk, 2:25PM SCHROEDER HALL |
Season Finale: A Tale of Two Cities
Saturday, June 2, 8PM & Sunday, June 3, 3PM
Piazza San Marco with the Basilica
View of Dresden
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The Venetian style, developed especially by musicians working at the Basilica of San Marco in Venice, became famous throughout Europe for its color, grandeur and expressive capacity. Composers Hans Leo Hassler and Heinrich Schütz came to Italy to absorb the style at the feet of such masters as Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli and Claudio Monteverdi, and then returned to Saxony like evangelists spreading the word. Others such as Michael Praetorius observed and learned the style from afar. We present works written for Venice and Dresden by all of these composers, scored for multiple choirs and a festive double orchestra of brass and strings.
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Sonoma Bach Choir
Live Oak Baroque Orchestra Whole Noyse Saturday, June 2, 8PM BachGrounder pre-concert talk, 7:25PM Sunday, June 3, 3PM BachGrounder pre-concert talk, 2:25PM SCHROEDER HALL |
