Early music — festive:
Programmes for Advent, Christmas and Passiontide

Of stars, shepherds and the Christ Child

Ars Antiqua Austria: »Christmas at the castle of Esterháza«
Advent and Christmas Music by Haydn's Predecessor in the Court Chapel of the Princes Esterházy

He is probably almost unknown to most music lovers today, but he was once one of the most famous composers of his time: Gregorius Josephus Werner (1693-1766) was in charge of the Esterházy court orchestra from 1728, composed an enormous amount of sacred music, but also numerous secular works; he mastered the old a capella style as well as the more concertante baroque style of the 18th century, always with consummate counterpoint.
And after Joseph Haydn was appointed Vice-Kapellmeister to the Prince from 1761 onwards, one can clearly detect the influences of his older superior Gregor Werner even in his work. Werner's string quartets were so dear to Haydn that he edited and published them himself even in the last years of his own life!

Particularly charming, however, are also the vocal works for Advent and Christmas that Werner wrote for his prince: composed for soprano and viola amabile, respectively for tenor and two chalumaux, these cantilenas reveal Werner's intense love of nature and folk piety, coupled with highly complex counterpoint and a reliable sense of melodic Christmas ear candy.

Gunar Letzbor has rediscovered these beautiful works and would like to introduce them to modern audiences in this programme together with his ensemble Ars Antiqua Austria.
Alongside the vocal works (the soprano part is performed here by a boy soprano), there are some of Werner's two-movement quartets in the Haydn edition, a concerto for violins and chalumeaux, but also a charming Christmas pastoral by this unjustly forgotten composer.


Ars Antiqua Austria:
St. Florianer Sängerknabe - soprano
Markus Miesenberger - tenor

Gunar Letzbor - violin, alto amabile und direction
Barbara Konrad - violin
Markus Miesenberger - alto
Jan Krigovsky - violone
Ernst Schlader - chalumeau
Markus Springer - chalumeau
Erich Traxler - organ/harpsichord


Price: 7.000 €, plus travel and hotel

Please feel free to contact us about possible follow-up concerts, which reduce rehearsal and travel costs.

Enjoy here the soprano-aria Gleich wie der Lilien from an advent-Cantilene on our YouTube channel.

Here you can find more sound samples from a CD with music by Werner on YouTube.

The Bach Ensemble & Joshua Rifkin: »Es ist erschienen«
Motets and Kleine Geistliche Konzerte by Heinrich Schütz for Advent and Christmas

Many of Heinrich Schütz's motets from the Geistliche Chormusik 1648 are regularly part of the repertoire of numerous church choirs and vocal ensembles, and enjoy unbroken popularity with the audience. The equally beautiful and so unbelievably ingeniously composed Kleine Geistliche Konzerte, on the other hand, are still abundantly unknown in the country: most of them are too demanding for amateur singers, and the very variably scored pieces are difficult to incorporate into programmes with works by other composers.

This, too, was a reason for Joshua Rifkin, who was responsible for the chapter on current insights into Schütz's performance practice in the Schütz Handbuch recently published by Bärenreiter/Metzler, to lovingly include some of them in this Advent and Christmas programme alongside the great motets.

And at the same time, the musician and scholar with his Bach Ensemble shows in his programme quasi exemplarily how magnificently this music is written, how intensely it still touches its listeners today — despite, or perhaps because of, its rather small instrumentation!


The Bach Ensemble:

Gerlinde Sämann, Barbora Kabatkova - soprano
Terry Wey - altus
David Munderloh, Tore Tom Denys - tenor
Felix Schwandtke - bass

Marcin Szelest - organ

Joshua Rifkin - direction

Optionally, this programme is also possible with additional two violins and one violone and works from the Symphoniae Sacrae.


Price: 9.900 €, plus travel and accommodation

Please contact us for information on possible follow-up concerts, which reduce rehearsal and travel costs.

An impression from a rehearsal of Schütz' Herzlich lieb hab ich dich, o Herr from the Geistlichen Chormusik 1648 with Joshua Rifkin and The Bach Ensemble can be found on our YouTube channel.

Various sound samples of the ensemble can also be found on our website.

Ensemble Danguy: »Concerto de Noël«
French Christmas music from the era of Louis XV.

We all have heard the reports of aristocrats dressed as shepherds and shepherdesses, sneaking through the bushes in splendid parks in 18th century France — following the fashion that emerged in the upper class around 1700 to imitate (in a heavily idealised way) the life of the simple rural population.

In magnificent palaces, instruments were played that had their models in folk music, but soon had little in common with these models. For example, the hurdy-gurdy: originally a beggar's instrument, and now suddenly — richly decorated and technically upgraded by courtly instrument makers — one of the most popular instruments of the upper classes. Thus, between about 1720 and 1760, an enormous treasure of partly highly complex compositions — sonatas, concerti etcetera — for this instrument was created, which are completely unknown today, not least because there are only a handful of hurdy-gurdy virtuosos worldwide who are able to play the works created in the 18th century.
One of them is Tobie Miller.

Even then, however, people in France were very fond of Christmas carols (Noëls). The quantity and quality of these pieces suggest a rich and significant tradition, and many of these carols are still sung today, testifying to their long-lasting appeal and relevance.
Also, in the 18th century it was common to incorporate particularly well-known and popular melodies into more extensive compositions. This resulted in works that took many of the favourite Christmas carols of the time and arranged them in concerto, trio sonata or even duet form for various instruments — including the baroque hurdy-gurdy.

In this enchanting programme by Ensemble Danguy, directed by Tobie Miller, the audience can experience a selection of such works from 18th century France. A very special and tremendously charming repertoire by composers such as Michel Corrette, Michel de Lalande and Nicolas Chédeville is heard here: music that was highly popular in aristocratic circles in its day, but is almost forgotten today — and brings a pastoral winter landscape to life in the listener's minds ...


Ensemble Danguy
Tobie Miller - baroque hurdy-gurdy, direction
Annie Dufresne - soprano
Alice Humbert - baroque hurdy-gurdy
Ellie Nimeroski, Natalie Carducci - violin
Caroline Ritchie - cello
Nadja Lesaulnier - harpsichord


Price: 5.900 €, plus travel and hotel

Please feel free to contact us regarding possible follow-up concerts, which will would reduce rehearsal and travel costs.

Here you can watch Ensemble Danguys playlist on our YouTube channel. And here you can find excerpts from a live concert at the Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht 2022.

Here you find further sound samples on our website.

laReverdie: »Stella nova — The new star«
Medieval Songs for the Christmas Season

Throughout Europe in the Middle Ages, people cultivated an exceptionally rich repertoire for Advent and Christmas that went far beyond the strictly liturgical tradition and with which they wanted to festively decorate this particularly emotional time of the year.
This programme by laReverdie conveys an impression of this richness, in the form of a colourful and festive Christmas journey through Europe.

The musicians start with the cult of Saint Nicholas — the same one, by the way, who has since been promoted to Father Christmas in many places. But the actual St. Nicholas was a holy bishop from Asia Minor in the 4th century, whose feast was celebrated around the winter solstice. He originally shared his attributes with other Norse deities such as Wotan or Thor, and was worshipped from Iceland to Italy in the Middle Ages.
In a kind of prologue to the programme, the musicians of laReverdie allude in an English devotional sequence and motet to the picturesque wonders of this saint — who in his day was not yet suspected of trespassing private homes by sliding down the chimney once a year ...

French motets and English cantilenas then tell of the birth of Christ: mirroring a devotion that celebrates both the great event itself and the Mother of God as the medium of salvation; for, due to the widespread veneration of Mary in the 13th and 14th centuries, the birth of Christ is often represented in his mother. In the case of polyphonic motets, different texts were even superimposed on each other, focusing on the same theme, in order to increase the solemnity of the occasion, so to speak.

The programme ends with a selection of French motets and Italian laude, which sing the story of the comet (stella nova), which was already venerated in the Jewish book of Numbers and whose bright light led the Magi to honour the holy child with precious gifts.


laReverdie:
Claudia Caffagni - voice, lute, bells
Livia Caffagni - voice, recorders, fiddle
Elisabetta de Mircovich - voice, fiddle, symphonia
Teodora Tommasi - voice, harp, recorders


Price: 3.800,- Euro, plus travel and accommodation

Please feel free to contact us regarding possible follow-up concerts, which might reduce rehearsal and travel costs.

Hören Sie hier einen Livemitschnitt der Lauda Stella nova de le genti auf unserem YouTube channel.

Listen here to the Cantilena Sainte Nicolas Godes druth by San Godric di Finchale, from a CD, dedicated to Saint Nikolaos on our YouTube channel.

Per-Sonat: »Sweetest Jesus«
Laude and songs for Christmas from around 1500

In this delightful programme, ensemble Per-Sonat under the direction of Sabine Lutzenberger brings to life unheard treasures from the rich repertoire of Italian Christmas music from the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

At the centre of the programme are popular laude from the important manuscript Laudario di Cortona, which date back to the time of Francis of Assisi: Sacred hymns that sing of the Christmas miracle in an intimate and original way. In addition, there are also polyphonic lauds of the Renaissance, whose sweet, yet entirely unaffected language continues the late medieval tradition in a popular character.

In the third part of the programme, Oswald von Wolkenstein (1377-1445) tells us in his song In Suria mit breiten hal that he saw the Christmas miracle himself, and in Keuschlich geboren he sings of the Mother of God Mary and the birth of Jesus.

Finally, the programme is rounded off by sacred music from Burgundy: the Franco-Flemish composer and singer Johannes Brassart (born around 1405) travelled through Italy several times and was employed at the papal chapel in Rome. His three-part motet Gratulemur christi cole concinentes, noe noe sings of the birth of Christ and the redemption of humanity in a heartfelt, immensely artistic manner.


Per-Sonat
Colin Balzer - tenor
Elizabeth Rumsey - fiddle, viola da gamba
Baptiste Romain - fiddle, Renaissance violin
Marc Lewon - lute
Sabine Lutzenberger - voice, direction


Price: 4.400 €, plus travel and accommodation

Please feel free to contact us regarding possible follow-up concerts, which will reimburse rehearsal and travel costs.

Listen to a sample of Per-Sonat with one of the most famous songs of Walther von der Vogelweide here on their playlist on our YouTube channel.

Of suffering, death and redemption

Per-Sonat: »Lamentations«
About mourning as universal emotion

The ancient poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65 - 8 BC) was one of the most important Roman poets of the Augustan Age, along with Virgil and Ovid. However, his poetry was still highly esteemed and richly celebrated in the Middle Ages.

How popular his odes actually were at that time is shown in particular by the new melodies that were added to these poems in the 11th century, in order to sing them in the Christian liturgy. And the composers of these melodies were not in the least bothered by the fact, that the texts originally had no Christian reference whatsoever — they simply and shamelessly used them for highly dramatic passion songs and lamentations: For the feeling of mourning — as they seem to have realised then already — is an universal feeling that transcends time.

In addition to such exquisite recycled products of the Middle Ages, this programme, which Sabine Lutzenberger has put together for her ensemble Per-Sonat, also features organa from the 9th century, according to the rules of musica enchiriadis, as well as the responsory Vox in Rama from the late 10th century: It tells of Rachel mourning the death of her children. The same theme is found in a late 11th century lament from St. Martial de Limoges, which is set up as a dialogue between the lamenting mother Rachel and a consoling angel. Another lament in this programme is the Planctus David by Petrus Abelardus, in which David mourns the death of King Saul and his son Jonathan.

In all these works, it becomes obvious to the listeners that our time, as dramatic as it may seem to us in some respects, is not the only time of lamentation. Grief is an universal emotion that has always moved and continues to move people with the same intensity across all epochs, countries and religions.
This programme, which spans almost two millennia with its lyrics and melodies, makes this only too clear.


Per-Sonat
Christine Mothes - voice
Jasmina Črnčič - voice
Hanna Marti - voice, harp, lyre
Marc Lewon - carolingian cytara, lyre, voice
Sabine Lutzenberger - voice, direction


Price: 4.400 €, plus travel and accommodation

Please feel free to contact us regarding possible follow-up concerts, which will reduce rehearsal and travel costs.

Listen to Per-Sonat at work on our YouTube channel.

Le Miroir de Musique: »Guilaume de Machaut and the Face of Death«
Christian and secular love and its end in mourning

Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1305-1377) — the greatest composer of 14th century France — understood the idea of death as a very significant poetic element, and it had a lasting impact on his musical and literary work.
And although Machaut may have been almost constantly confronted with the physical death of people close to him as well, in the troubled period of the 14th century, he explores in his works not least the mort d'amour — the death of love — which sometimes nevertheless also symbolises the liberation from the torments endured by the lover, or the grief of separation.

As in his chansons, Machaut treats the theme of the bondage of love and the absolute devotion of the lover to his fair lady also in many of the motets heard in this programme. However, some of the melodies on which these works are based as well address death in a religious context: Christ's sacrifice on the cross, the Office of the Dead, the story of Job or the mourning of Absalon's death. The motet Fera pessima, on the other hand, simultaneously refers to the devil's grasp and the misfortunes of the Hundred Years' War — with a magnificent plea for an end to pride and envy, which may be as relevant as in his times in our times, too.

Thus, this programme by Baptiste Romain and his ensemble Le Miroir de Musique shows how close Eros and Thanatos, Christian and worldly love were for the people of the Middle Ages, how much death acted as a great equaliser. And, conceived for the multiple colours that can be created by a mixed cast of voices and instruments, the programme also explores the subtle relationship between text and music that distinguishes Machaut's incomparable style and makes it so fascinating.


Le Miroir de Musique
Tessa Roos - soprano
Sabine Lutzenberger - soprano
Jacob Lawrence - tenor
Raitis Grigalis - baritone
Elizabeth Rumsey - fiddle
Marc Lewon - lute, quinterne
Rui Stähelin - lute, bass
Baptiste Romain - fiddle, bagpipes and direction


Price: 6.800,- Euro, plus travel and hotel

Listen here to Machaut's dramatical motet Obediens usque ad mortem in a live recording of the ensemble on our YouTube channel.

Le Miroir de Musique: »In ciel d'amor divino — In the heaven of divine love«
Venetian popular piety in the passion songs of the Laudesi

The laude, as they were performed in Venice around 1500, are pieces that tell mainly of the passion of Christ and the figure of the Virgin Mary. Some of them are in Latin, but even more of them have Italian texts — after all, the original idea of the Franciscan friars who initiated this genre was to address the common people with the laude.
As early as the late 14th century, these chants were heard in church services; at that time still rather homophonic and simple in structure, and performed by so-called Laudesi: singers and musicians who were specially employed for this purpose by the six religious confraternities of Venice.
With the success and spread of Franco-Flemish vocal polyphony in Italy around 1500, the laude also became more and more refined, more and more polyphonic — especially in Venice, where Ottaviano Petrucci published two large collections of such devotional pieces.

The works presented in this programme by Le Miroir de Musique, directed by Baptiste Romain, trace this development in a selection geared to the Passion season: First there are the particularly lively, textually close and often very rhythmic pieces from the early phase of this music, then the musicians move on to those in which familiar melodies of the time — especially, incidentally, of love songs ... — were underlaid with new, devotional texts and then arranged in the Franco-Flemish style as contrafactures.

And it is precisely what made these works of the Venetian Renaissance so special in their time, that still makes them so appealing to today's listeners: Their tremendous liveliness, their onomatopoeic interpretation of the text, their rhythmic momentum. So, Passion time or not: they are still close to the people and enthusing, even for today's listeners!


Le Miroir de Musique:

The preferred cast for this programme is:
Jessica Jans - soprano
Sabine Lutzenberger - mezzosoprano
Dina König - altus
Jacob Lawrence - tenor
Elizabeth Rumsey - alto d'arco, string lyre
Baptiste Romain - alto d'arco, lira da braccio, Renaissance violin and direction
Marc Lewon - lute
Rui Stähelin - lute

Also possible with smaller cast (five or more musicians).


Price: 6.800,- €, plus travel and hotel (for eight musicians)

Please feel free to contact us regarding possible follow-up concerts, which will reduce rehearsal and travel costs.

See and listen such a Laude here on our YouTube channel.

laReverdie: »From darkness into light«
The cross as a symbol of redemption in the Middle Ages

The Passion and Easter seasons are probably the ones in the church year that spurred musicians and composers at all times to the most intense efforts to produce works of the highest standard.
In this programme, laReverdie would like to introduce their listeners to a particularly fascinating part of this repertoire in the Middle Ages, tracing a path from darkness to light — manifested not only in the titles of the works performed, but also in the atmosphere of the pieces.

This begins with French motets of the 13th century, in which the cross is illuminated and explored from various angles. Alongside this, however, a conductus from the famous French manuscript of Roman de Fauvel describes the crucifixion with comparisons between the nails of the cross (clavus) and the keys of the church (claves), and with a lunge against clerical corruption that overpowered the church's God-given supremacy and metaphorically turned the keys into nails.

In the 13th century, the text of Mary's lament, the Planctus Mariae, flourished in a wide variety of religious expressions and artistic genres throughout Europe, in both Latin and vernacular texts. In Italy, for example, the Laudario di Cortona contains several Lauds whose texts are a monologue of Mary under the Cross.
Another example of a lament in this programme is the famous Stabat mater by Jacopone da Todi.
And of course, in a programme on death and redemption, the Easter sequence Victimae paschali laudes cannot be missing: probably composed in the 11th century, it was used as a tenor, the main theme of an Italian motet dedicated to Saint Mary. Additionally in this programme it is heard as the tenor of an instrumental piece composed by Elisabetta de Mircovich — which radiantly concludes the musical journey from darkness into light.


laReverdie:
Claudia Caffagni - voice, lute, bells
Livia Caffagni - voice, recorders, fiddle
Elisabetta de Mircovich - voice, fiddle, symphonia
Teodora Tommasi - voice, harp, recorders


Price: 3.800,- Euro, plus travel and accommodation

Please feel free to contact us regarding possible follow-up concerts, which will reduce rehearsal and travel costs.

Here you can listen to the motet Mors a primi patris by Perotinus Magnus from 13th century on our YouTube channel .

The Bach Ensemble & Joshua Rifkin: »Die mit Tränen säen«
Motets and Kleine Geistliche Konzerte by Heinrich Schütz for the Passion tide

Many of Heinrich Schütz's motets from the Geistliche Chormusik 1648 are part of the most beloved repertoire of numerous church choirs and vocal ensembles, and enjoy unbroken popularity with the audiences. The equally beautiful and so unbelievably ingeniously composed Kleine Geistliche Konzerte, on the other hand, are still abundantly unknown in the country: most of them are too demanding for amateur singers, but the very variably scored pieces are difficult to incorporate into programmes with works by other composers.

This was a reason for Joshua Rifkin, who was responsible for the chapter on current findings on Schütz's performance practice in the Schütz Handbuch recently published by Bärenreiter/Metzler, to lovingly include them in this programme for the Passion season alongside the great motets.

And at the same time, the musician and scholar with his Bach Ensemble shows in his programme quasi exemplarily how magnificently this music is written, how intensely it still touches its listeners today — despite, or perhaps because of, its rather small casts!


The Bach Ensemble:

Gerlinde Sämann, Barbora Kabatkova - soprano
Terry Wey - altus
David Munderloh, Tore Tom Denys - tenor
Felix Schwandtke - bass

Marcin Szelest - organ

Joshua Rifkin - direction

Optionally, this programme is also possible with additional two violins and one violone and works from the Symphoniae Sacrae.


Price: 9.900 €, plus travel and accommodation

An impression from a rehearsal Schütz' Herzlich lieb hab ich dich, o Herr from the Geistlichen Chormusik 1648 with Joshua Rifkin and The Bach Ensemble can be found on our YouTube channel. YouTube channel.

Various sound samples of the ensemble can also be found on our website.

Ars Antiqua Austria: »Oratorium de Passione«
Sensational find: the first known Catholic Passion composition in German language

It is a sensational find in two respects that Gunar Letzbor came across in the magnificent library of St. Florian Abbey near Linz: a Passion by the composer and Augustinian canon Franz Josef Aumann (1728-1797).
Not only did Letzbor discover a fantastically expressive work in this Oratorio de Passione Domini Nostri Jesu Christi, but it is also probably the earliest Catholic Passion composition in the German language known to us to date.

Furthermore the 75-minute work is also exceptional in another respect, namely in its perspective: this Passion music begins after the crucifixion of Jesus. In it, Aumann illuminated atmospheric images and set to music the spiritual reflections of those present, emotionally coming to terms with the inconceivable: Even the sinner cannot escape this grief, his heart softens and he weeps for the death of Jesus Christ.
And all this in German — a real novelty in Catholic church music of the time, and doubtless also closer to most of today's listeners than Latin text!

Gunar Letzbor and Ars Antiqua Austria have rediscovered the piece after centuries of oblivion and — together with an extraordinary group of singers — they want to prove that it still touches today's music lovers as directly and intensely as it did touch the listeners 250 years ago.


Ars Antiqua Austria:
St. Florianer Sängerknabe - soprano
Alois Mühlbacher - altus
Markus Miesenberger - tenor
Alexandre Baldo - bass

Seven instrumentalists

Gunar Letzbor – direction


Price: 11.400 €, plus travel and hotel

Here you can listen to a first impression of the Passion Oratorio, in an excerpt from the recent CD recording's first cut: the bass aria Mein Jesus hängt am Kreuzesstamm.

Here you can also enjoy a live recording of a mass by Aumann with Ars Antiqua Austria and the St. Florian Boys' Choir on our YouTube channel.

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97074 Würzburg
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Fon: +49 931 714 23
Mail: info@sonus-alte-musik.de
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