Christmas Concert: Baroque Classics

Pearls in Baroque: Christmas Gala Concert

Bal baroque

Join in the dancing! As part of the festivities in honour of William Christie’s 80th birthday, Les Arts Florissants invites you to a new participatory ball.

Holland Baroque: À Chloris

For lovers of chamber music the Recital Hall is the venue of choice. You can hear the musicians breathe and you can practically touch them. This hall is also cherished by musicians for its beautiful acoustics and direct contact with the audience. In the Recital Hall you can hear the best musicians of our time. Buy your tickets now and experience the magic of the Recital Hall for yourself!

Classical Christmas Concert with Jan Vayne

The Concertgebouw’s famous Main Hall is one of the best concert halls in the world, well-known for its exceptional acoustics and special atmosphere. In the Main Hall, you will feel history. Here, Gustav Mahler conducted his own compositions, as did Richard Strauss and Igor Stravinsky. Sergei Rachmaninoff played his own piano concertos in the Main Hall. This is also where musicians such as Leonard Bernstein, Vladimir Horowitz and Yehudi Menuhin gave legendary performances. Right up to now, the Main Hall offers a stage to the world’s best orchestras and musicians. Buy your tickets now and experience the magic of the Main Hall for yourself!

Christmas Concert

Elsa Benoit, photo: James Bellorini Christmas motifs have been written into numerous pages of Western classical music, and not only on the occasion of the festivities that open the carnival season. In the second movement of George Frideric Handel’s Concerto a due cori, one can easily recognise an excerpt of the joyful, punctuated rhythm of the chorus Lift up your heads from the Messiah’s second movement, which tells the story of the life, death and resurrection of Christ. Johann Sebastian Bach, fulfilling the demands of the Protestant liturgical calendar by the sweat of his brow, wrote many works for the Christmas season. In so doing, he also drew inspiration from Italian musicians, including the composer of the famous ‘Christmas Eve’ Concerto Grosso in G minor, Arcangelo Corelli. Bach’s showstopping solo cantata Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen suited a variety of festive occasions due to its universal, laudatory text. Its virtuosic coloratura parts require soprano and trumpet soloists of the highest calibre. Christmas themes can also be found in the text of the Credo. One of the most beautiful passages in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Mass in C minor – not without reason referred to as the ‘Great’ – is the expansive, mellifluous aria ‘Et incarnatus est’ from the Credo. Mozart wrote it with his vocally gifted wife Constanze in mind, just as years before he had penned the showstopping motet ‘Exsultate, jubilate’ for the famous Italian soprano Venanzio Rauzzini.

Christmas Concert

Elsa Benoit, photo: James Bellorini Christmas motifs have been written into numerous pages of Western classical music, and not only on the occasion of the festivities that open the carnival season. In the second movement of George Frideric Handel’s Concerto a due cori, one can easily recognise an excerpt from the first part of The Messiah, devoted to the Old Testament announcements of Christ’s coming. Johann Sebastian Bach, fulfilling the demands of the Protestant liturgical calendar by the sweat of his brow, wrote many works for the Christmas season. In so doing, he also drew inspiration from Italian musicians, including the composer of the famous ‘Christmas Eve’ Concerto Grosso in G minor, Arcangelo Corelli. Bach’s showstopping solo cantata Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen suited a variety of festive occasions due to its universal, laudatory text. Its virtuosic coloratura parts require soprano and trumpet soloists of the highest calibre. Christmas themes can also be found in the text of the Credo. One of the most beautiful passages in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Mass in C minor – not without reason referred to as the ‘Great’ – is the expansive, mellifluous aria ‘Et incarnatus est’ from the Credo. Mozart wrote it with his vocally gifted wife Constanze in mind, just as years before he had penned the showstopping motet ‘Exsultate, jubilate’ for the famous Italian soprano Venanzio Rauzzini.

Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra / Ton Koopman

Wait a moment, these are the first sounds of the »Christmas oratorio« which starts this concert in the middle of summer! Yes and no: Johann Sebastian Bach often ›recycled‹ his own music and used pieces he considered particularly successful, repeatedly in very different works. Ton Koopman, expert in historical Bach performance practice, has selected three secular cantatas by the Baroque master, which celebrate name-days and birthdays of the Saxon elector prince family and include so many well-known arias and chants. On these occasions, Bach did not set to music any sacred, but secular texts. Characters from classical mythology appear here, convey good wishes to the gods and praise them. For the composer, these compositions which were performed in the open air in beer gardens in summer and in coffee houses in the winter are part of his Leipzig engagements. Two of the cantatas even bear the subheading »Dramma per Musica« – festive miniature operas with virtuoso arias, studded with outstanding soloists. Ton Koopman, who is giving his Elbphilharmonie debut with this concert, is, with his Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir, one of the world’s best Bach interpreters, awarded with numerous prizes. The conductor, organist and harpsichordist fully dedicated himself to the composer: »To me, Bach is the most brilliant composer in the history of music! What affects me with Bach is the tremendous balance between sense and sensibility – his music goes straight to the heart. A day without Bach is inconceivable to me!«

Festive Christmas Concert

Four choirs come togeather in this festive Christmas concert with the HansePhilharmonie Hamburg. Under the baton of Mike Steurenthaler, they perform a programme that is as festive as it is contemplative in the Laeiszhalle Grand Hall.

Monteverdi Choir / English Baroque Soloists / Peter Whelan

The Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists present »Israel in Egypt«, one of George Frideric Handel’s most famous oratorios. The key protagonist is not a solo part, but the choir that represents the long-suffering Israelites. Luckily, the Monteverdi Choir is one of the best in the world – and an emotionally moving and musically formidable concert evening is in store. Next to his ubiquitous »Messiah«, Handel’s 24 other oratorios don’t have it easy, although »Israel in Egypt« is relatively well known. Which is no wonder considering how Handel packaged the story of the enslaved Israelites’ exodus from ancient Egypt as a musical crime drama. Although originally conceived for the concert hall, the oratorio is so full of drama that it is also regularly performed on the operatic stage.

Ton Koopman & Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra: Handel's Esther

The Concertgebouw’s famous Main Hall is one of the best concert halls in the world, well-known for its exceptional acoustics and special atmosphere. In the Main Hall, you will feel history. Here, Gustav Mahler conducted his own compositions, as did Richard Strauss and Igor Stravinsky. Sergei Rachmaninoff played his own piano concertos in the Main Hall. This is also where musicians such as Leonard Bernstein, Vladimir Horowitz and Yehudi Menuhin gave legendary performances. Right up to now, the Main Hall offers a stage to the world’s best orchestras and musicians. Buy your tickets now and experience the magic of the Main Hall for yourself!