Coinciding with the “European Early Music Day”, as well as the anniversary of the birth of J.S. Bach, the period instrument orchestra La Madrileña, under the direction of José Antonio Montaño, and soprano María Espada will open the Sacred Music Series of Las Rozas with a concert in the Joaquín Rodrigo Auditorium on March 21, 2020.
The program will feature works of the three most important composers of the 18th century in Germany, Spain and Italy – Johann Sebastian Bach, José de Nebra and Antonio Vivaldi, respectively. It will be shown how it was that Baroque music in these three countries developed unique regional styles with certain characteristics specifically representative of each place, despite the utilization of the same technical compositional resources, such as the same harmonic language, similar features of counterpoint, and identical instrumentation.
Two of José de Nebra’s sacred arias for soprano and orchestrated for strings, basso continuo and two traversos will be performed. Parce mihi Domine, from the Office and Mass for the Dead composed in 1758 and dedicated to the Queen of Spain, Bárbara de Braganza was also recently recorded and published by La Madrileña, the Coro Victoria, and Schola Antiqua, all under the direction of José antonio Montaño. De Nebra’s Lamentation II for Holy Wednesday will round out this composer’s contribution to this concert.
Two sacred orchestral works of Antonio Vivaldi will also be performed. Suonata a 4 Al Santo Sepolcro and the Sinfonía Al Santo Sepolcro, as in the case of de Nebra, were likewise both composed for strings and basso continuo.
Representative of Johann Sebastian Bach, Montaño will lead the musicians in Bach´s beautiful cantata Ich habe genug for solo soprano, in addition to the well-known Suite for Orchestra No. 2 in B minor. The instrumentation for both works is strings, basso continuo and solo traverso. The French style was also very important in Europe in this era, as it was the most international musical form of the Baroque period. By performing Bach´s Suite in the French style along with these other works of the three most important European composers of the 18th century on period instruments, La Madrileña´s “Baroque Europe” program will honor the four principal styles of the late Baroque.
More information at SCHEDULE 2020