麻豆社

A concert given by Le Po猫me Harmonique at the Jacobikerk as part of the 2019 Utrecht Early Music Festival. 17th-century music: vanities and contrafacta from Naples to Rome. Presented by Lucie Skeaping.

Naples, 1640. A pilgrim mingles with a colourful crowd as it moves in a vast procession. Along the cortege are heard laudi, simple devotionals sung in unison, and belted out with popular enthusiasm. Of the faithful, few know the authors of these melodies, and yet they live and work in the city.
Were the traveller to enter a church, they would have found it hard to believe their eyes or ears. Lost in the Baroque d茅cor, they risked being equally led astray by the music. Rather than hymns, echoing off the walls would be the roar of battle, a lover鈥檚 plaint or a dramatic quarrel. And yet, in Latin, under the heavy vaulting and between the twisted columns, they would still hear the names of Christ and the Virgin.
From its earliest beginnings, the musical language of opera has been the language of passion, even in church, where saints and sinners express themselves like lyrical figures; from the profane to the sacred, voices often merge.

Music by Claudio Monteverdi, Gregorio Allegri, Luigi Rossi and Marco Marazzoli.