Pearls in Baroque: The French Connection of Purcell

The Image of Melancholy: John Dowland and Henry Purcell

The Sunday Morning Concert brings you wonderful and much-loved compositions, performed by top musicians from the Netherlands and abroad. Enjoy the most beautiful music in the morning! You can make your Sunday complete by enjoying a delicious post-concert lunch in restaurant LIER.The Royal Concertgebouw is one of the best concert halls in the world, famous for its exceptional acoustics and varied programme. Attend a concert and have an experience you will never forget. Come and enjoy inspiring music in the beautiful surroundings of the Main Hall or the intimate Recital Hall.

Originalklang Ensemble Diderot with French baroque music

The Ensemble Diderot explores the diverse beauties of baroque chamber music. For this concert, the French trio sonata takes centre stage. These are musical treasures full of dance – like vigour and melodic elegance, in which two melodic voices are intertwined with a bass line. Great composers like François Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau focused on the genre, but lesser-known names can also be discovered on this programme – such as that of Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, who was patronised by King Louis XIV and was considered a “miracle of the century” during her lifetime.

Countertenor Alexander Chance sings Purcell

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!

»The Art of Being Human«

Human existence is a contradictory business. »The Art of Being Human« explores the complex impacts of this trite fact. The Grammy award-winning viola da gamba ensemble Phantasm thereby ensures a musical performance at the very highest level. Its members put their instrumental mastery into operation for an evening in which old sounds and contemporary dance blend into an inseparable unit and jointly try to fathom the darkest recesses of the human condition. Choreographer Sommer Ulrickson and allround visual artist Alexander Polzin create a multidisciplinary framework in which music and movement come together, connect with each other, hook into each other, collide and cross fertilise. Under the leadership of Laurence Dreyfus, Phantasm plays music of English masters, such as John Dowland, Henry Purcell and William Byrd. At the same time, the musicians interact in the most diverse way with the dancers, who move as partners and yet adversaries around sculptures by the Berlin artist Alexander Polzin. The result is a staged concert evening, which makes full use of the potential of this currently popular format!

Pearls in Baroque: Christmas Gala Concert

Pearls in Baroque: Joseph & Michael Haydn

The Giants of the Baroque in London

The Danish baroque specialists Concerto Copenhagen presents a programme centered around Händel and Roman. When the young Swedish violinist and composer Johan Helmich Roman embarked on a study trip to London in 1716, it would prove to be a journey that was decisive, not only for Roman’s life but for the entire history of Swedish music.Roman came from the German-dominated music scene in Stockholm to London where the dominant musical trend was the Italian style, embodied in the recently arrived Georg Friedrich Händel. Roman was an active part of London’s musical life. He played in Händel’s orchestra at the King’s Theatre and met other musicians and composers, many of them from Italy. So, when Roman returned to Stockholm in 1721, he did so as a well-educated, modern-oriented musician and a brilliant violinist. Most importantly, as a composer, he had acquired a thorough understanding of new stylistic trends, not only in opera but also in instrumental music. Roman remained associated with the Swedish court orchestra throughout his life, and his stay in London not only affected ”the father of Swedish music,” as Roman is known today, but also changed the history of Swedish music.This program presents the music that ”the Swedish Händel,” Johan Helmich Roman, encountered in London, as well as the music he composed himself.

Vivaldi: The Four Seasons

So much can be captured: what is known as early music (literally, »old music« in German) has long since no longer only been in the hands of the old guard, who did important pioneering work. More and more young artists, trained in specialised degree programmes, are flocking onto the stages of this world to revive the music of the past few centuries in fresh interpretations. One of the current stars on this scene is French baroque violinist Théotime Langlois de Swarte, who – following his performance in the Elbphilharmonie »Fast Lane« series – you can now experience with his own ensemble Le Consort. On the programme is one work that needs no introduction: Antonio Vivaldi’s »Four Seasons«. The collection of four violin concertos portraying the seasons is one of the earliest and most famous examples of programme music – and surely one of the most popular works of all in the history of music. De Swarte now skilfully combines it in his programme with other concertos and overtures by Vivaldi and his contemporaries – and so makes the seasons appear in a new guise.

The Wedding of the Sun King

Probably France’s largest 17th century festival comes to life again here: the wedding between the »Sun King« Louis XIV and the Spanish princess Marie-Thérèse ended the long-standing hostility of both countries in 1660 and was fittingly ostentatiously celebrated, firstly on the Spanish border, then in Paris. Thereby, a large-scale musical setting befitting their social status from sacred works via fanfares to dance and opera should also be included. Vincent Dumestre, with his period performance orchestra Le Poème Harmonique and vocalists, has put together a splendid panorama of French baroque music, which transforms the entire Elbphilharmonie Grand Hall into a royal ballroom. The proverbial timpani and trumpets sound, there is a lot of music by Jean-Baptiste Lully – Louis XIV’s favourite composer – and by Francesco Cavalli, who travelled from Italy to Paris for the wedding specifically for performances of his operas. This programme incidentally evolved from Dumestre and his ensembles for the Palace of Versailles, which the Sun King had built as an overflowing, sumptuous structure – also to make space for the theatre, ballet and opera performances he so loved. Today, the stars of the early music scene take golden hammers into their hands here and sound repertoire gems of the 16th to 18th century.