BACH AT NOON
Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, by François de Troy
Friday, November 15, 2024
12:00 p.m.
The output of English musician Henry Purcell (1659-1695) constitutes one of the most stylistically diverse legacies of the Baroque period. In Cross-Channel Currents, BCSD zooms in on one important strand of Purcell’s style vis-à-vis his French contemporaries, with two masterful Psalm settings, written within a few years of one another (Prière pour le Roy, Psalm 20, of M.A. Charpentier (1643-1704), and Purcell’s Unto Thee Will I Cry, Psalm 28), alongside the music of Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre (1665-1729): her richly textured, Couperin-inspired Trio sonata in G minor.
Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Prière pour le Roy H.164 (Psalm, 1670s)
Élisabeth De la Guerre, Trio Sonata no. 2 in G minor (c. 1695)
Henry Purcell, Unto Thee Will I Cry Z.63 (Symphony anthem, 1684-5)
All Souls’ Episcopal Church
1475 Catalina Blvd, San Diego, CA 92107
The Ancient of Days setting a Compass to the Earth, by William Blake
Friday, January 17, 2025 12:00 p.m.
Late in his career in the 1740s, Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) turned his attention to the music of a much younger Italian contemporary, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-1736), reconstructing the latter’s already famous Stabat mater of 1736, by changing its Latin text to a new German one ("Tilge, Höchster, meine Sünden" or "Cancel, Highest, my sins") and subtly expanding the orchestration, yet keeping all the essential materials of the original composition. Bach thereby transformed the original into something very unique: a co-authored hybrid that shines a fascinating light on the musical language of both composers.
Bach-Pergolesi, Tilge, Höchster, meine Sünden BWV 1083 (c.1745)
All Souls' Episcopal Church 12:00 p.m.
1475 Catalina Blvd, San Diego, CA 92107
Title page of Mozart's Ein musikalischer Spaß (André, Vienna, 1797)
Friday, February 21, 2025
12:00 p.m.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) is famous not only for his music, but also for his irreverent and uproarious sense of humor, and it has never been on clearer display than in Ein musikalischer Spaß (“A Musical Joke”). In this comedic tour de force, Mozart deftly lampoons the music of his less gifted and less inspired colleagues, creating a musical landscape littered with chord progressions gone awry, outrageous counterpoint errors, conspicuous wrong notes, and, amidst all the chaos and incompetence, an occasional flicker of startling beauty! BCSD places this one-of-a-kind joke next to a pastiche of non-satirical pieces which likewise feature a pair of natural horns, by Mozart and his friend and mentor Franz Josef Haydn (1732-1809), in presenting these polar opposites: From the Ridiculous to the Sublime.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ein musikalischer Spaß K.522 (1787)
Divertimento in D major, K.334 (1779-1780)
March in D major, K.445/320c (1780)
Franz Josef Haydn, Divertimento in D major, Hob.II:22 (1765)
All Souls' Episcopal Church 12:00 p.m.
1475 Catalina Blvd, San Diego, CA 92107
Detail from Primavera, by Sandro Botticelli (c. 1480)
Friday, April 4, 2025
12:00 p.m.
Despite their differences in gender and life circumstances, Johann Hermann Schein (1586-1630) and Francesca Caccini (1587-1640) were near-exact contemporaries and shared a keen sensibility in their settings of love poetry, some of which was penned by the composers themselves. BCSD explores the parallels clearly discernible in these selections from Schein’s Musica boscareccia (Leipzig, 1621/1626/1628) and Caccini’s Il primo libro delle Musiche (Florence, 1618), from the earliest decades of the baroque period.
Francesca Caccini, selections from Il Primo libro delle musiche and La liberazione di Ruggiero
Johann Hermann Schein, selections from Musica boscareccia
All Souls' Episcopal Church 12:00 p.m.
1475 Catalina Blvd, San Diego, CA 92107