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About this Program

MBM is thrilled to announce that this year’s Baroque Holiday Concert—A 17th-Century German Christmas—is a long-awaited collaboration with the outstanding vocal ensemble Bella Voce from Evanston, Illinois. On Saturday afternoon, December 14, in the clear and warm acoustics of Madison’s First Congregational Church, vocalists from Bella Voce and instrumentalists from MBM will join forces in performing an array of masterpieces by Buxtehude, Praetorius, Hammerschmidt, Geist, Biber, Schmelzer, Schütz, Hassler, and Schein. The concert will be presented a second time on Sunday, December 15, in the elegant sanctuary of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Evanston, IL.

The program is a deep dive into the musical wonders composed in the German-speaking countries during the exceptionally turbulent years of the 17th century. The hardships of this era included the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648)—which decimated the German-speaking countries in particular, several outbreaks of plague, and many abnormally long and cold winters (now referred to as the Little Ice Age). Yet, somehow, amid this tribulation, a trove of magnificent music was created and performed—though frequently by small ensembles because often those were all that were available. Seventeenth-century music presents an irresistible mixture of the predictable and the capricious. Repeated baselines (grounds, chaconnes, passacaglias) are everywhere, providing a solid foundation, while, above them, variations and melodic divisions were frequently impetuous. Indeed, as the century wore on and the new genre of opera came into fashion, vocal lines, even in religious music, increasingly followed the irregular, syllabic grain of the text—with astonishingly convincing results!

We hope you can join us for this remarkable program of 17th-century musical gems to celebrate the Holiday Season!

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