Events

Choral Evensong: Musique pour les dames religieuses. PACIFIC BAROQUE FESTIVAL 2012 “MUSIC FOR THE SUN KING”

South Vancouver Island

Sun. February 12th, 2012 4:30pm - 5:45pm

Discover the musical brilliance of Versailles and beyond. Henry Du Mont’s music was highly-esteemed in his day and is now recognised as the creator of the French baroque motet. The music sung at this Service will be drawn from his published work Cantica Sacra (1652), one of the earliest published works of French choral music. Featuring the St Christopher Singers and an ensemble of the Pacific Baroque Orchestra.

The French court at the time of the Sun King, Louis XIV, was an age of artistic splendour, with lavish spectacles and musical entertainments, and richly instrumented music for the church and Parisian concert life. To further his political ends, Louis invested in the arts, determined to make them a metaphor of political stability. He attracted to his court some of Europe’s most enlightened composers who in many ways revolutionized music.

Pacific Baroque Festival 2012 presents music written for the 17th and 18th century French courts, and will show how French music at the Court at Versailles influenced two great German composers, Telemann and Bach.

This concert is the first of five Festival events.