ENSEMBLE AUTHENTIA

Symphonie Sacrae

Musik af Schütz, Rosenmüller, Biber og Buxtehude

Else Torp, sopran

Lena Langballe, zink, blokfløjte

Roberto Falcone, violin

Helle Sørensen, cello

Sven-Ingvart Mikkelsen, orgel.

NB NEW VENUE!

Ensemble Authentia presents a program based on the Symphoniae Sacrae by Schütz. This music has great beauty and a rare dramatic elegance which has inspired us to build a concert around it including also other composers. To accompagny the soprano voice with violin and cornetto and continuo is a real treat! Listen to how the sounds mix in the many imitations with melodic patterns and rythmic details in these musical paintings, and we hope you will be as fascinated as we are. Enjoy!

Schütz needs no futher presentation here in this context. We have chosen some of his compositions from the Symphoniae Sacrae where the soprano voice is accompagnied by two high instruments, here cornetto and violin. " Paratum cor meum" is kept in a rather strict style whereas "Herr unser Herrscher" is more inspired by the stile concertato with elaborate imitations of the voice and explicit word-painting in the figures. These pieces were composed at the time where Schütz was working for King Christian the 4.th, wether they were actually composed in Denmark or in Dresden is not known, but they are dedicated to the Danish King.

By Johann Rosenmüller we play a sonata, a small scale composition of a rare beauty with its melancholic themes and changing charactors.

Since the Italian influence is so strong in this program, and the use and practice of diminutions seems to be everywhere in the music, I have chosen to play an ornamented motet by Palestrina, "Pulchra es amica mea". The diminution is by F. Rognoni who wrote the treatise "Selva di varii passaggi" from 1620, one of the most important works for diminution practice.

With one concert in Helsingør we liked to include Buxtehude in the program with his "Singet dem Herren" for soprano and violin obligato and the ciaccona "Quemadmodum desiderat cervus", originally for tenor voice, but in this context i a version for soprano.

The violin shows its virtuosity in the sonata by Biber, a piece of variations one more elaborated than the other, and all with different carachters.

We conclude the concert like we started, with Schütz! "Herr unser Herrscher", a wonderful piece where the voice and the instruments imitate each other and in the most elegant way tell the story of the words beeing sung.