1685: annus mirabilis Music of Bach, Handel, and Scarlatti
Saturday June 1st 2024 4pm Church of St Mary Falmouth, ME
Sunday June 2nd 2024 4pm Unitarian Universalist Church Brunswick, ME
Pre-concert lecture at 3:30
James Kennerley, guest conductor
1685 was indeed an auspicious year, witnessing the birth of three of the greatest composers of the Baroque era. This concert celebrates the thrilling virtuosity, endless invention, and sensuous vocal writing of music by Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frederick Handel, and Domenico Scarlatti. The program features Scarlatti’s dazzling hymn to the Virgin Mary, Salve Regina, for solo soprano, and Bach’s sensational Suite in A minor, an early version of the beloved Orchestral Suite in B minor replete with the famous Badinerie. The concert concludes with Handel’s fiery Dixit Dominus, a setting of Psalm 110 that was composed when he was 21 and living in Italy, the birthplace of opera. Drama is at the center of every movement, from the fiery opening string figures, the elegant soprano solo movement, Tecum principium,and the virtuosic finale.