Early Music Around Town
A timely shortlist of local early music concerts and events.
To view the entire season of concerts and events, consult the current Master Calendar.
Please note that SCEMS does not present or sponsor concerts.
The listings below include early music related concerts and events offered by organizations throughout the Southern California area. Readers are advised to call ahead to verify events, times, and ticket availability, which are subject to change.
Master Calendars
Credit: Renaissance minstrels in Augsburg (1520). iStock.com/© gameover2012
May 2020
SUNDAY, MAY 24 4:00
Guts Baroque live on YouTube: The 18th-Century Viol: The Legacy of Marin Marais.
Prepare to be transported to the court of Versailles, to dance and be moved by the gentle, refined, and elegant music of the French baroque! Marin Marais is the most beloved composer by players of the viola da gamba. He lived and worked for Louis XIV at the height of the French baroque era, and his music exemplifies the grace and delicacy of French music, as defined by his friend and colleague Jean Baptiste Lully. His five books of Pieces de Viole contain hundreds of dances, fantasies and character pieces, organized into suites by key. The techniques, decorations and musical idioms contained in these pieces were passed along by Marais to his students, several of whom became renowned viol players and composers themselves. These students include Charles Dolle, Jacques Morel, Louis de Caix-d’Hervelois, and of course his son Roland Marais. Our program includes: Marais’ Suite d’un Gout Etranger, or Suite in a Foreign Taste; his son Roland Marais’ Suite in C, amiable and friendly; his student Dollé’s Tombeau de Marais le Père, a memorial for the great teacher after his death; and contemporary Dauvergne’s Opus 2 Sonata #1, a fun violin sonata from the tail end of the Baroque era.
Free, streaming live and archived for replay after the concert at https://youtu.be/N6s3i-lYfKs.
Free-will donations gratefully accepted; more info at https://gutsbaroque.com/concerts and info@gutsbaroque.com. Guts is: Sylvia Schwartz, baroque violin, and John Ott, viola da gamba and baroque cello.
June 2020
Friday 6/12, 7pm PDT
Guts Baroque: Revisiting Marais
A Groupmuse
$3 reservation + at-will donation (sugg. $10),
Program:
Marais’ Suite d’un Gout Etranger, or Suite in a Foreign Taste
his son Roland Marais’ Suite in C, amiable and friendly
his student Dollé’s Tombeau de Marais le Père, a memorial for the great teacher after his death,
and contemporary Dauvergne’s Opus 2 Sonata #1, a fun violin sonata from the tail end of the Baroque era.
Marin Marais is the most beloved composer by players of the viola da gamba. He lived and worked for Louis XIV at the height of the French baroque era, and his music exemplifies the grace and delicacy of French music, as defined by his friend and colleague Jean Baptiste Lully. His five books of Pieces de Viole contain hundreds of dances, fantasies and character pieces, organized into suites by key. The techniques, decorations and musical idioms contained in these pieces were passed along by Marais to his students, several of whom became renowned viol players and composers themselves. These students include Charles Dollé, Jacques Morel, Louis de Caix-d’Hervelois, and of course his son Roland Marais.
We will perform for you music by Marais and his students, as well as the violinist Antoine Dauvergne, whose compositional styles reflect the evolving musical tastes of France under Louis XV.
Prepare to be transported to the court of Versailles, to dance and be moved by the gentle, refined and elegant music of the French baroque!
What's a Groupmuse??Pre-COVID-19, Groupmuse helped people host informal house parties with live classical chamber music, building inclusive community and bringing live music right up close to those enjoying it. Their team has been working very hard since March to create online events with the same feeling of intimacy and community, and we're thrilled to be on their roster of artists.
https://gutsbaroque.com/concerts
Sunday 6/28, 4pm PDT
Guts Baroque: Bach, Alone and Together
free or at-will donation, https://youtu.be/1soORaWd-gc
Johann Sebastian Bach is one of the most beloved composers in history, and through his long career as a composer he wrote over a thousand pieces of music. His compositions are revered because of their seemingly mathematical complexity, as Bach is widely considered to have been the greatest master of the fugue, and also for their great beauty of emotion and phrasing. His works were studied and revered by composers such as Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Brahms, among many others.
We will perform for you a few of Bach’s works for string instruments. Some are familiar, as the 6 Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin and the 6 Suites for Solo Cello are performed often. We will also perform a lesser-known Sonata for Violin and Continuo, BWV 1021, which is equally elegant and beautiful.
Come experience the joy and beauty in this wonderfully complex and beautiful music by the Baroque era’s greatest master!
Program:
J.S. Bach’s Sonata for Violin and Continuo in G, BWV 1021
one of his Suites for Solo Cello
and one of his Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin