Several past performances of this program:
STRASBOURG: Festival de musique ancienne
SABLÉ: Festival de musique ancienne
GYÖR: Öt Templom Festival
MEXICO CITY: Festival de Música Antigua
TOLEDO: Festival de Tres Culturas
Music with themes selected from ancient Scriptures (the Old Testament) combine to form a collection of ancient stories told through music. Works by composers both Jewish and Christian is presented, often with striking contrast. Listen to a variety of stories from ancient Scripture while experiencing viewpoints from the lush courts in France (with sacred cantatas by E.J. de la Guerre or S. de Brossard) to the Jewish communities in Holland (with Italian-style cantatas composed in Hebrew).
Holland deserves special mention as the Spanish-Portuguese Jews of the 17th and 18th centuries who moved there often played important roles in transferring scientific knowledge from the Islamic world to Christian Europe.
They integrated rather than assimilated into their new environment in Holland, and developed close relations with Christian scholars, also remaining faithful to their own tradition.
Several Jewish composers took advantage of the sudden interest in ancient thought and writings to enter into the Christian world, bringing their language and music with them. Christian composers interested in Jewish culture like Benedetto Marcello used Hebrew scattered throughout their works. Curiously, some communities even commissioned Gentile composers to write for them. Such is the case of Cristiano Giuseppe Lidarti, one of the composers featured in this concert. Though he composed in the fashionable “galant” style of the time, using Hebrew texts with Latin characters is a fascinating practice.
János Malina, director International Opera Foundation, Eszterháza, Budapest.
"The contrasts in ambience were very sensitively made by the soprano and narrator, who is an inspired actor who used the chant style from the synagogues to interpret texts selected from the Old Testament. The members of the ensemble set the standard for stylistic interpretation, with an excellent technical preparation and instrumental inspiration that supported the vocal parts, all of which contributed to the success of this concert.”
Le Maine Libre, Sablé-sur-Sarthe, France.
“…the talented musicians of the ensemble Le Tendre Amour form a very solid quintet around a soprano of surprising vocal virtuosity and warmth…"