Magnificat Baroque Ensemble
Encyclopedia
The Magnificat Baroque Ensemble, or Magnificat, is an early music
ensemble of voices and instruments specializing in the Baroque music
of the 17th century under the artistic direction of Baroque cellist Warren Stewart. Stewart founded the ensemble in San Francisco in 1989 with Baroque harpsichordist
Susan Harvey. Harvey resigned in 2000, and the group has remained under the sole musical direction of Stewart since then. The group derives its name from the first word of the Latin translation of the Canticle of Mary in the Gospel of Luke
, Magnificat anima mea, "My soul magnifies the Lord", which is sung during the Roman Catholic evening prayer or vespers
service.
The ensemble's repertoire covers the sweep of religious
, stage
, and chamber music
of the 17th Century by such giants as Claudio Monteverdi
, Giacomo Carissimi
, Alessandro Stradella
, Marc-Antoine Charpentier
, Heinrich Schütz
, Dieterich Buxtehude
, Henry Purcell
, and lesser-known and infrequently-performed composers of the era.
Magnificat has particularly championed and performed music by women composers Francesca Caccini
, Isabella Leonarda
, Barbara Strozzi
and Chiara Margarita Cozzolani
and has hosted a conference on Women and Music in Seventeenth Century Italy. Magnificat's annual concerts, recordings, and participation in music festivals have won audience and critical acclaim, and engaged the collaboration of respected scholars and musicologists.
In addition to their own concerts in the San Francisco Bay Area
, Magnificat has been presented by The Berkeley Early Music Festival, The Seattle Early Music Guild, The Carmel Bach Festival, Music Before 1800, The Tropical Baroque Festival, and The Society for Seventeenth Century Music. They have recorded for the Koch International and Music Omnia labels.
Since 1989 Magnificat has provided period instrument ensembles to San Francisco Bay Area choral groups desiring to bring historically-informed performance practice to their concerts through its affiliate, the Jubilate Orchestra, which has now collaborated in over 300 performances with a variety of groups.
, vespers
, cantatas and oratorios
, as well as vocal chamber music
, opera
, pastorale
s and other works for the tage (theatre)|stage). It is particularly noted for its musical reconstruction of religious works in the liturgical context in which they were first performed. Religious works are performed with all the music a 17th century audience would have heard in church including liturgical chants and prayers. Audiences are invited to join in singing congregational hymns and chorales that form part of the reconstruction.
Outstanding among its reconstructions is the performance of all the music performed at the rededication of the chapel
of St. Gertrude in Hamburg
in 1607. A premier musical establishment severely damaged by fire, its rededication drew the collaboration of major composers of North Germany. Following the composer’s suggestion Magnificat performed Heinrich Schütz’ Musikalische Exequien
as a paraphrase for the Kyrie
and Gloria
in a Lutheran mass for the Feast of the Purification at the Berkley Early Music Festival in 1996 and again in their own series in 2009.
Magnificat's signature work is Monteverdi's great Vespro della Beata Vergine 1610 (Vespers of the Blessed Virgin of 1610) written to win the prestigious musical directorship of St. Mark's in Venice
and which Magnificat performed in 1994 and 1999. It will again perform the Vespers in 2010 to mark the work's 300th anniversary.
Magnificat has performed the first opera buffa
featuring a basso buffo in the title role, Stradella's Il Trespolo tutore
, and will perform the first opera written by a woman, Francesca Caccini's La Liberazione di Ruggiero
in October 2009. It has also staged performances of Charpentier's rarely performed music for Jean-Baptiste Molière's comedy Le Malade Imaginaire
.
Notable among its opera productions have been its performances with the Carter Family Marionettes of the puppet
opera La Grandmère amoureuse by Fuzelier
and Dorneval from the Paris
ianThéâtre de la foire
"theaters of the fair" tradition and Jacopo Melani
’s Il Girello. The October 2009 presentations of Caccini's La Liberazione di Ruggiero will be performed with the Carters according to the Sicilian
puppet tradition.
Magnificat was originally conceived as a collective of equal parts - a "chamber music" esthetic grounded in the talent and individual inspiration of Magnificat's musicians that is reflected in its interpretations and recognized by its audiences. Over the years, Magnificat has been guided by the spirit of the period in its emphasis on dramatic narrative and sensitive emotional expression. The ensemble has given numerous contemporary premieres of music not heard for the last 200 - 300 hundred years. Because much music of the 17th century still remains unavailable, performing editions have been prepared from original manuscript sources by Stewart and musicologists
on Magnificat's Artistic Advisory Board.
501(c)(3) non-profit organization governed by a Board of Directors whose current president is Nicholas Elsishans. Stewart serves as its Musical Director and Dominque Pelletey as its Managing Director. Nina Korniyenko serves as Creative Director and Boby Borisov as Audio Engineer. The group's agent is Robert Friedman Presents.
An Advisory Board of scholars and musicologists contribute advice, performing editions, and scholarly essays for programs, websites, and CD notes which are posted on Magnificat's website. Advisory Board members are Alan Curtis of the ensemble Il Complesso Barocco; Robert Kendrick, University of Chicago
; Jeffrey Kurtzman, Washington University (St. Louis); John Powell, University of Tulsa
; Elanor Selfridge-Field, Stanford University
, and Kate van Orden, University of California, Berkeley
.
CD's and downloads of these recordings are available at Magnificat's website as are selections of individual pieces from its performances.
Early music
Early music is generally understood as comprising all music from the earliest times up to the Renaissance. However, today this term has come to include "any music for which a historically appropriate style of performance must be reconstructed on the basis of surviving scores, treatises,...
ensemble of voices and instruments specializing in the Baroque music
Baroque music
Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...
of the 17th century under the artistic direction of Baroque cellist Warren Stewart. Stewart founded the ensemble in San Francisco in 1989 with Baroque harpsichordist
Harpsichordist
A harpsichordist is a person who plays the harpsichord.Many baroque composers played the harpsichord, including Johann Sebastian Bach, Domenico Scarlatti, George Frideric Handel, François Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau...
Susan Harvey. Harvey resigned in 2000, and the group has remained under the sole musical direction of Stewart since then. The group derives its name from the first word of the Latin translation of the Canticle of Mary in the Gospel of Luke
Gospel of Luke
The Gospel According to Luke , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Luke or simply Luke, is the third and longest of the four canonical Gospels. This synoptic gospel is an account of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. It details his story from the events of his birth to his Ascension.The...
, Magnificat anima mea, "My soul magnifies the Lord", which is sung during the Roman Catholic evening prayer or vespers
Vespers
Vespers is the evening prayer service in the Western Catholic, Eastern Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran liturgies of the canonical hours...
service.
The ensemble's repertoire covers the sweep of religious
Religious music
Religious music is music performed or composed for religious use or through religious influence.A lot of music has been composed to complement religion, and many composers have derived inspiration from their own religion. Many forms of traditional music have been adapted to fit religions'...
, stage
Stage (theatre)
In theatre or performance arts, the stage is a designated space for the performance productions. The stage serves as a space for actors or performers and a focal point for the members of the audience...
, and chamber music
Chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...
of the 17th Century by such giants as Claudio Monteverdi
Claudio Monteverdi
Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, gambist, and singer.Monteverdi's work, often regarded as revolutionary, marked the transition from the Renaissance style of music to that of the Baroque period. He developed two individual styles of composition – the...
, Giacomo Carissimi
Giacomo Carissimi
Giacomo Carissimi was an Italian composer, one of the most celebrated masters of the early Baroque, or, more accurately, the Roman School of music.-Biography:...
, Alessandro Stradella
Alessandro Stradella
Alessandro Stradella was an Italian composer of the middle baroque. He enjoyed a dazzling career as a freelance composer, writing on commission, collaborating with distinguished poets, producing over three hundred works in a variety of genres.-Life:Not much is known about his early life, but he...
, Marc-Antoine Charpentier
Marc-Antoine Charpentier
Marc-Antoine Charpentier, , was a French composer of the Baroque era.Exceptionally prolific and versatile, he produced compositions of the highest quality in several genres...
, Heinrich Schütz
Heinrich Schütz
Heinrich Schütz was a German composer and organist, generally regarded as the most important German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach and often considered to be one of the most important composers of the 17th century along with Claudio Monteverdi...
, Dieterich Buxtehude
Dieterich Buxtehude
Dieterich Buxtehude was a German-Danish organist and composer of the Baroque period. His organ works represent a central part of the standard organ repertoire and are frequently performed at recitals and in church services...
, Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell – 21 November 1695), was an English organist and Baroque composer of secular and sacred music. Although Purcell incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements into his compositions, his legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music...
, and lesser-known and infrequently-performed composers of the era.
Magnificat has particularly championed and performed music by women composers Francesca Caccini
Francesca Caccini
Francesca Caccini was an Italian composer, singer, lutenist, poet, and music teacher of the early Baroque era. She was the daughter of Giulio Caccini, and was one of the best-known and most influential female European composers between Hildegard of Bingen in the 12th century and the 19th century...
, Isabella Leonarda
Isabella Leonarda
Isabella Leonarda was an Italian composer from Novara. At the age of 16, she entered the Collegio di Sant'Orsola, an Ursuline convent, where she stayed for the remainder of her life...
, Barbara Strozzi
Barbara Strozzi
Barbara Strozzi was an Italian Baroque singer and composer.-Life:...
and Chiara Margarita Cozzolani
Chiara Margarita Cozzolani
Chiara Margarita Cozzolani , was a composer, singer and Benedictine nun. She spent her adult life cloistered in the convent of Santa Radegonda, Milan, where she became abbess and stopped composing...
and has hosted a conference on Women and Music in Seventeenth Century Italy. Magnificat's annual concerts, recordings, and participation in music festivals have won audience and critical acclaim, and engaged the collaboration of respected scholars and musicologists.
In addition to their own concerts in the San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
, Magnificat has been presented by The Berkeley Early Music Festival, The Seattle Early Music Guild, The Carmel Bach Festival, Music Before 1800, The Tropical Baroque Festival, and The Society for Seventeenth Century Music. They have recorded for the Koch International and Music Omnia labels.
Since 1989 Magnificat has provided period instrument ensembles to San Francisco Bay Area choral groups desiring to bring historically-informed performance practice to their concerts through its affiliate, the Jubilate Orchestra, which has now collaborated in over 300 performances with a variety of groups.
Repertoire
Magnificat's repertoire includes the genres of sacred music motets, massesMass (music)
The Mass, a form of sacred musical composition, is a choral composition that sets the invariable portions of the Eucharistic liturgy to music...
, vespers
Vespers
Vespers is the evening prayer service in the Western Catholic, Eastern Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran liturgies of the canonical hours...
, cantatas and oratorios
Oratórios
Oratórios is a Brazilian municipality located in the state of Minas Gerais. The city belongs to the mesoregion of Zona da Mata and to the microregion of Ponte Nova.-See also:* List of municipalities in Minas Gerais...
, as well as vocal chamber music
Chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...
, opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
, pastorale
Pastorale
For Beethoven's Pastoral symphony, see Symphony No. 6 Pastorale refers to something of a pastoral nature in music, whether in form or in mood....
s and other works for the tage (theatre)|stage). It is particularly noted for its musical reconstruction of religious works in the liturgical context in which they were first performed. Religious works are performed with all the music a 17th century audience would have heard in church including liturgical chants and prayers. Audiences are invited to join in singing congregational hymns and chorales that form part of the reconstruction.
Outstanding among its reconstructions is the performance of all the music performed at the rededication of the chapel
Chapel
A chapel is a building used by Christians as a place of fellowship and worship. It may be part of a larger structure or complex, such as a church, college, hospital, palace, prison or funeral home, located on board a military or commercial ship, or it may be an entirely free-standing building,...
of St. Gertrude in Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
in 1607. A premier musical establishment severely damaged by fire, its rededication drew the collaboration of major composers of North Germany. Following the composer’s suggestion Magnificat performed Heinrich Schütz’ Musikalische Exequien
Musikalische Exequien
Musikalische exequien Op.7, SWV279-281 is a sacred work by Heinrich Schutz; it was written about in 1635/6, for the funeral services of the Count Heinrich Posthumus Reuss, who had died on December 3, 1635. It comprises the following sections:* John Eliot Gardiner, Archiv Produktion...
as a paraphrase for the Kyrie
Kyrie
Kyrie, a transliteration of Greek κύριε , vocative case of κύριος , meaning "Lord", is the common name of an important prayer of Christian liturgy, which is also called the Kýrie, eléison ....
and Gloria
Gloria in Excelsis Deo
"Gloria in excelsis Deo" is the title and beginning of a hymn known also as the Greater Doxology and the Angelic Hymn. The name is often abbreviated to Gloria in Excelsis or simply Gloria.It is an example of the psalmi idiotici "Gloria in excelsis Deo" (Latin for "Glory to God in the highest")...
in a Lutheran mass for the Feast of the Purification at the Berkley Early Music Festival in 1996 and again in their own series in 2009.
Magnificat's signature work is Monteverdi's great Vespro della Beata Vergine 1610 (Vespers of the Blessed Virgin of 1610) written to win the prestigious musical directorship of St. Mark's in Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
and which Magnificat performed in 1994 and 1999. It will again perform the Vespers in 2010 to mark the work's 300th anniversary.
Magnificat has performed the first opera buffa
Opera buffa
Opera buffa is a genre of opera. It was first used as an informal description of Italian comic operas variously classified by their authors as ‘commedia in musica’, ‘commedia per musica’, ‘dramma bernesco’, ‘dramma comico’, ‘divertimento giocoso' etc...
featuring a basso buffo in the title role, Stradella's Il Trespolo tutore
Il Trespolo tutore
Il Trespolo tutore is a comic opera in three acts by the Italian composer Alessandro Stradella with a libretto by Giovanni Cosimo Villifranchi. It was first performed at the Teatro Falcone, Genoa on 30 or 31 January, 1679...
, and will perform the first opera written by a woman, Francesca Caccini's La Liberazione di Ruggiero
La liberazione di Ruggiero
La liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola d'Alcina is a comic opera in four scenes by Francesca Caccini, first performed February 3, 1625 at the Villa di Poggio Imperiale in Florence, with a libretto by Ferdinando Saracinelli, based on Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso...
in October 2009. It has also staged performances of Charpentier's rarely performed music for Jean-Baptiste Molière's comedy Le Malade Imaginaire
Le Malade imaginaire
The Imaginary Invalid is a three-act comédie-ballet by the French playwright Molière. It was first performed in 1673 and was the last work he wrote. In an ironic twist of fate, Molière collapsed during his fourth performance as Argan on 17 February and died soon after...
.
Notable among its opera productions have been its performances with the Carter Family Marionettes of the puppet
Puppet
A puppet is an inanimate object or representational figure animated or manipulated by an entertainer, who is called a puppeteer. It is used in puppetry, a play or a presentation that is a very ancient form of theatre....
opera La Grandmère amoureuse by Fuzelier
Louis Fuzelier
Louis Fuzelier was a French dramatic author who was born in Paris in 1672 and died in the same city on September 19, 1752. He wrote more than 200 plays for the théâtres de la foire , alone or in collaboration with Alain-Rene Lesage, Alexis Piron or d'Orneval.Fuzelier wrote the libretto les Indes...
and Dorneval from the Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
ianThéâtre de la foire
Théâtre de la foire
Théâtre de la foire is the collective name given to the theatre put on at the annual fairs at Saint-Germain and Saint-Laurent in Paris.-Foire Saint-Germain:The earliest references to the annual fair date to 1176...
"theaters of the fair" tradition and Jacopo Melani
Jacopo Melani
Jacopo Melani was an Italian composer and violinist of the Baroque era. He was born and died in Pistoia, and was the brother of composer Alessandro Melani and singer Atto Melani.-Works:...
’s Il Girello. The October 2009 presentations of Caccini's La Liberazione di Ruggiero will be performed with the Carters according to the Sicilian
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
puppet tradition.
Esthetic
Emerging from the early music revivalEarly Music Revival
See Early music and Historically informed performance for a more detailed explanation of this topic.The general discussion of how to perform music from ancient or earlier times did not become an important subject of interest until the 19th century, when Europeans began looking to ancient culture...
Magnificat was originally conceived as a collective of equal parts - a "chamber music" esthetic grounded in the talent and individual inspiration of Magnificat's musicians that is reflected in its interpretations and recognized by its audiences. Over the years, Magnificat has been guided by the spirit of the period in its emphasis on dramatic narrative and sensitive emotional expression. The ensemble has given numerous contemporary premieres of music not heard for the last 200 - 300 hundred years. Because much music of the 17th century still remains unavailable, performing editions have been prepared from original manuscript sources by Stewart and musicologists
Musicology
Musicology is the scholarly study of music. The word is used in narrow, broad and intermediate senses. In the narrow sense, musicology is confined to the music history of Western culture...
on Magnificat's Artistic Advisory Board.
Organization
Magnificat is a CaliforniaCalifornia
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
501(c)(3) non-profit organization governed by a Board of Directors whose current president is Nicholas Elsishans. Stewart serves as its Musical Director and Dominque Pelletey as its Managing Director. Nina Korniyenko serves as Creative Director and Boby Borisov as Audio Engineer. The group's agent is Robert Friedman Presents.
An Advisory Board of scholars and musicologists contribute advice, performing editions, and scholarly essays for programs, websites, and CD notes which are posted on Magnificat's website. Advisory Board members are Alan Curtis of the ensemble Il Complesso Barocco; Robert Kendrick, University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
; Jeffrey Kurtzman, Washington University (St. Louis); John Powell, University of Tulsa
University of Tulsa
The University of Tulsa is a private university awarding bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees located in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA. It is currently ranked 75th among doctoral degree granting universities in the nation by US News and World Report and is listed as one of the "Best 366 Colleges" by...
; Elanor Selfridge-Field, Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
, and Kate van Orden, University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
.
2009–2010
- Francesca CacciniFrancesca CacciniFrancesca Caccini was an Italian composer, singer, lutenist, poet, and music teacher of the early Baroque era. She was the daughter of Giulio Caccini, and was one of the best-known and most influential female European composers between Hildegard of Bingen in the 12th century and the 19th century...
: La Liberazione di RuggieroLa liberazione di RuggieroLa liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola d'Alcina is a comic opera in four scenes by Francesca Caccini, first performed February 3, 1625 at the Villa di Poggio Imperiale in Florence, with a libretto by Ferdinando Saracinelli, based on Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso... - Chiara Margarita CozzolaniChiara Margarita CozzolaniChiara Margarita Cozzolani , was a composer, singer and Benedictine nun. She spent her adult life cloistered in the convent of Santa Radegonda, Milan, where she became abbess and stopped composing...
: Mass for Christmas Day - Alessandro GrandiAlessandro GrandiAlessandro Grandi was a northern Italian composer of the early Baroque era, writing in the new concertato style...
and Tarquinio MerulaTarquinio MerulaTarquinio Merula was an Italian composer, organist, and violinist of the early Baroque era. Although mainly active in Cremona, stylistically he was a member of the Venetian school...
: Celesti Fiori - Claudio MonteverdiClaudio MonteverdiClaudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, gambist, and singer.Monteverdi's work, often regarded as revolutionary, marked the transition from the Renaissance style of music to that of the Baroque period. He developed two individual styles of composition – the...
: Vespro della Beata Vergine 1610
2008–2009
- Marc-Antoine CharpentierMarc-Antoine CharpentierMarc-Antoine Charpentier, , was a French composer of the Baroque era.Exceptionally prolific and versatile, he produced compositions of the highest quality in several genres...
: Les plaisirs de VersaillesLes plaisirs de VersaillesLes plaisirs de Versailles is a short opera by the French composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier. It was intended for performance at the new courtly entertainment known as les appartements du roi devised by King Louis XIV and held in his own apartments at the palace of Versailles in 1682...
and La Couronne des Fleurs - Giovanni Antonio Rigatti: Motets
- Heinrich SchützHeinrich SchützHeinrich Schütz was a German composer and organist, generally regarded as the most important German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach and often considered to be one of the most important composers of the 17th century along with Claudio Monteverdi...
: Musikalische ExequienMusikalische ExequienMusikalische exequien Op.7, SWV279-281 is a sacred work by Heinrich Schutz; it was written about in 1635/6, for the funeral services of the Count Heinrich Posthumus Reuss, who had died on December 3, 1635. It comprises the following sections:* John Eliot Gardiner, Archiv Produktion...
as a setting for a Mass for the Feast of the Purification - Alessandro ScarlattiAlessandro ScarlattiAlessandro Scarlatti was an Italian Baroque composer especially famous for his operas and chamber cantatas. He is considered the founder of the Neapolitan school of opera. He was the father of two other composers, Domenico Scarlatti and Pietro Filippo Scarlatti.-Life:Scarlatti was born in...
: Venere, Amore, e Ragione
2007–2008
Musical reconstruction of the 1607 Re-Dedication of St. Gertrude's Chapel in Hamburg- Alessandro ScarlattiAlessandro ScarlattiAlessandro Scarlatti was an Italian Baroque composer especially famous for his operas and chamber cantatas. He is considered the founder of the Neapolitan school of opera. He was the father of two other composers, Domenico Scarlatti and Pietro Filippo Scarlatti.-Life:Scarlatti was born in...
and Arcangelo CorelliArcangelo CorelliArcangelo Corelli was an Italian violinist and composer of Baroque music.-Biography:Corelli was born at Fusignano, in the current-day province of Ravenna, although at the time it was in the province of Ferrara. Little is known about his early life...
: Christmas Cantatas for the papal courtPapal courtThe Papal Household or Pontifical Household , called until 1968 the Papal Court , consists of dignitaries who assist the Pope in carrying out particular ceremonies of either a religious or a civil character.... - Marc-Antoine CharpentierMarc-Antoine CharpentierMarc-Antoine Charpentier, , was a French composer of the Baroque era.Exceptionally prolific and versatile, he produced compositions of the highest quality in several genres...
: Petits Motets - Alessandro StradellaAlessandro StradellaAlessandro Stradella was an Italian composer of the middle baroque. He enjoyed a dazzling career as a freelance composer, writing on commission, collaborating with distinguished poets, producing over three hundred works in a variety of genres.-Life:Not much is known about his early life, but he...
: Il Trespolo tutoreIl Trespolo tutoreIl Trespolo tutore is a comic opera in three acts by the Italian composer Alessandro Stradella with a libretto by Giovanni Cosimo Villifranchi. It was first performed at the Teatro Falcone, Genoa on 30 or 31 January, 1679...
2006–2007
- Marc-Antoine CharpentierMarc-Antoine CharpentierMarc-Antoine Charpentier, , was a French composer of the Baroque era.Exceptionally prolific and versatile, he produced compositions of the highest quality in several genres...
: Le Jugement de Solomon - Dieterich BuxtehudeDieterich BuxtehudeDieterich Buxtehude was a German-Danish organist and composer of the Baroque period. His organ works represent a central part of the standard organ repertoire and are frequently performed at recitals and in church services...
: Cantatas for Advent and Christmas - Alessandro StradellaAlessandro StradellaAlessandro Stradella was an Italian composer of the middle baroque. He enjoyed a dazzling career as a freelance composer, writing on commission, collaborating with distinguished poets, producing over three hundred works in a variety of genres.-Life:Not much is known about his early life, but he...
: Oratorio per La Susanna - Chiara Margarita CozzolaniChiara Margarita CozzolaniChiara Margarita Cozzolani , was a composer, singer and Benedictine nun. She spent her adult life cloistered in the convent of Santa Radegonda, Milan, where she became abbess and stopped composing...
: Vespro della Beata Vergine
2005–2006
- Giovanni Battista GuariniGiovanni Battista GuariniGiovanni Battista Guarini was an Italian poet, dramatist, and diplomat.- Life :He was born in Ferrara, and spent his early life both in Padua and Ferrara, entering the service of Alfonso II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, in 1567...
: Il Pastor FidoIl pastor fidoIl pastor fido is an opera in three acts by George Frideric Handel. It was set to a libretto by Giacomo Rossi based on the famed and widely familiar pastoral poem of the same name by Giovanni Battista Guarini.-Performance history:...
settings by various composers - Marc-Antoine CharpentierMarc-Antoine CharpentierMarc-Antoine Charpentier, , was a French composer of the Baroque era.Exceptionally prolific and versatile, he produced compositions of the highest quality in several genres...
: Pastorale sur la Naissance de Nostre Seigneur - Johann RosenmüllerJohann RosenmüllerJohann Rosenmüller , was a German Baroque composer, who played a part in transmitting Italian musical styles to the north....
: Vespers for the Feast of the Annunciation
Discography
- Chiara Margarita CozzolaniChiara Margarita CozzolaniChiara Margarita Cozzolani , was a composer, singer and Benedictine nun. She spent her adult life cloistered in the convent of Santa Radegonda, Milan, where she became abbess and stopped composing...
: Vespro della Beata Vergine - Musica Omnia MO0103 released December, 2001 - Chiara Margarita Cozzolani: Messa Pascale - Musica Omnia MO0209 released July, 2002
- Giacomo CarissimiGiacomo CarissimiGiacomo Carissimi was an Italian composer, one of the most celebrated masters of the early Baroque, or, more accurately, the Roman School of music.-Biography:...
: Oratorio - Vanitas VanitatumVanitasIn the arts, vanitas is a type of symbolic work of art especially associated with Northern European still life painting in Flanders and the Netherlands in the 16th and 17th centuries, though also common in other places and periods. The word is Latin, meaning "emptiness" and loosely translated... - Emilio de' CavalieriEmilio de' CavalieriEmilio de' Cavalieri was an Italian composer, producer, organist, diplomat, choreographer and dancer at the end of the Renaissance era. His work, along with that of other composers active in Rome, Florence and Venice, was critical in defining the beginning of the musical Baroque era...
: Opera - Rappresentatione di Anima, et di CorpoRappresentatione di Anima, et di CorpoEmilio de Cavalieri regarded himself as the composer of the first opera or oratorio, with the Rappresentatione di anima e di corpo,...
- Koch International
CD's and downloads of these recordings are available at Magnificat's website as are selections of individual pieces from its performances.
See also
- Early musicEarly musicEarly music is generally understood as comprising all music from the earliest times up to the Renaissance. However, today this term has come to include "any music for which a historically appropriate style of performance must be reconstructed on the basis of surviving scores, treatises,...
- Early music revivalEarly Music RevivalSee Early music and Historically informed performance for a more detailed explanation of this topic.The general discussion of how to perform music from ancient or earlier times did not become an important subject of interest until the 19th century, when Europeans began looking to ancient culture...
- Baroque musicBaroque musicBaroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...
- Historically-informed performance
- List of early music ensembles
Further reading
- Francesca Caccini's La Liberazione di Ruggiero and the Culture of Women by Susan G. Cusick
- "Hope dies hard in the artist -Tony Parisi and the Sicilian Puppet Tradition by Warren Stewart
- Hamburg Gertruden Musik by Frederick K. Gable
- Performing Sacred Music in Liturgical Context by Warren Stewart
- Seventeenth Century Music: To Speak Through Singing by Warren Stewart