Fall Concert: Baroque & Classical Masters
Vivaldi – Magnificat, RV 610
Salieri – De profundis
Mozart – Mass in C, KV 220 “Sparrow”
Vivaldi, Salieri, Mozart: What unites these three composers was a forward-looking creativity that took music on to its next era – even beyond. All three stand out for their contributions to instrumental music, but what connects them equally deeply is their vocal music – operatic and sacred.
Il prete rosso (The Red-Haired Priest), as Vivaldi was known, produced choral music that is both intensely expressive and sensitive vocal writing, He was one of the late Baroque composers who laid a solid foundation for Salieri and Mozart. The rivalry between the latter two seems largely a fiction that has overshadowed Salieri’s excellent reputation – as a composer of operas, but also of a very considerable body of sacred and secular choral music.
The choral works on this program focus on the sacred vocal music at which all of these masters excelled. They display their genius for encapsulating deep meaning and emotion in very compact forms.