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BAROQUE ENCOUNTER TRIO - PROGRAMMES
Current TRIO programmes include:
MUCH ADO ABOUT MUSIC
A recital of music written for the theatre,
originally designed to be played both on and off stage. Featuring music by Purcell, Eccles
and Handel and including settings of the words of Shakespeare.
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SUN, MOON AND STARS - inspired by celestial bodies
Through
the ages composers have been inspired by celestial bodies. Baroque Encounter
Trio present a charming recital featuring
Hasse’s
Pallido il sole (Pale the Sun),
Lucidissima Face (Endimione’s song
to the moon from Cavalli’s La Calisto),
excerpts from Vivaldi’s motet Clarae
Stellae Scintillate and capped off with Barnabas Gunn’s sacred
cantata Sun, Moon and Stars, Praise the
Lord.
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FRAGRANT FLORA - tracing the depiction of flora in music
From beautiful and delicate to steadfast and timeless, the aromatic to images
of rebirth, various flora have been used as metaphors in poetry, art and music
for centuries. The recital highlights how different composers have chosen
to depict flora in music to create moods, arouse images and express love.
Beautiful and wonderfully varied music is drawn from Arne, Couperin, Van
Eyck, Hasse, Handel and Pepusch's wonderful spring cantata 'Fragrant Flora'. This is
a perfect partner for the Chirping Warblers programme. A development of
this programme with piano instead of harpsichord encompasses music from outside
the baroque period.
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CHIRPING WARBLERS
The recorder is particularly effective in emulating the calls and sounds of
birds and much music has been written to exploit those qualities. In this
recital the trio have carefully selected music with birds at their centre.
Like flora, birds are often used by musicians and librettists to evoke the
characteristics of innocence, brightness, love and contentment. So too,
the music by Bononcini, Galliard, Pepusch, Couperin, Rameau and Handel enjoys
and revels in these images. This is a perfect partner for the Fragrant
Flora programme.
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THE RAPTUR'D SOUL - Guadagni: Handel's oratorio castrato
Castrato Gaetano Guadagni (1725-1792) was the original interpreter of
Handel's Didymus in Theodora and Gluck's Orfeo. In the last
10 years of his life, Handel added alto arias to Messiah for him and
invited him to sing in the premiere of The Choice of Hercules, as well as
many oratorio revivals - he was his oratorio castrato of choice. Through
spoken introductions and music this recital explores the
castrato's life, career and music.
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ITALIAN GLORIES
Italy was such a hive of activity in music and the arts during the baroque
period. Many composers and artists travelled there to spend time and soak
in the inspiration of such creativity in action. This recital celebrates
the output of Italy with arias, cantatas, canzonas and sonatas by Monteverdi,
Albinoni, Vivaldi, Cavalli, Scarlatti and Veracini, among others, exhibiting the
importance of the Italian contribution to baroque music.
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A FEAST FOR THE SENSES
If you needed an excuse to enjoy a banquet of sumptuous baroque favourites,
here it is. Your diet can be blown on starters of Purcell and Lute
Songs, then a main course of Handel, Bach and Telemann and then
really splurge on dessert with Vivaldi. Allow yourself to feast on
popular music from the baroque era with a few new delicacies thrown in to spice
up the meal.
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A SNAPSHOT OF HANDEL'S LONDON
London in the time of Handel was a cosmopolitan centre for
all the arts. Handel rode the wave of popularity of Italian opera bringing many
of the biggest stars of the day, including the superstar castrati, to star in
his operas. Many years later, when popular taste for Italian opera waned, he
moved his attentions to oratorios in English. His broad and prolific musical
output encompasses sacred, secular, theatrical, choral and chamber music. This
recital includes works by representatives of Handel's influences, contemporaries
and rivals including Corelli, Pepusch, Lonati and Porpora.
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LAMENTATIONS
As the title suggests, the works that make up this recital deal with grief.
However from the sacred and secular pieces selected the mood varies from denial
and depression to defiant anger, to the peace of the eternal rest and even
elation at the forgiveness of sins. J C Bach and J S Bach lead the sacred
vocal works, with theatrical pieces by Purcell and Handel and solo harpsichord
lamentations on various deaths, even his own, by Froberger.
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MORAL CANTATAS - TELEMANN
Telemann's set of six Moral Cantatas written in the early 1700's at a time
when lyrics of a moral nature and their setting to music were very popular.
Frugality, decency and good order were ordained as virtues while the bad effects
of envy, slander, arrogance and discourtesy were strongly discouraged.
This already varied set of cantatas is complemented by some of Telemann's finest
sonatas. The 'trio' extends to include a cello for this recital.
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HANDEL CANTATAS & KEYBOARD SUITES
Featuring some of Handel's most intimate music written for the salons of his
patrons, this recital programmes continuo cantatas on Arcadian themes,
shepherds, shepherdesses, Cupid and the problems of unrequited love with
selected keyboard pieces showcasing the harpsichord.
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