BRANDENBURG CONCERT
SUNDAY, 26 FEBRUARY 2023
14:15 h
HET CONCERTGEBOUW
KLEINE ZAAL
AMSTERDAM

BRANDENBURG CONCERT
SUNDAY
26 FEBRUARY, 14:15 h

HET CONCERTGEBOUW
KLEINE ZAAL

Pearls in Baroque

Sunday, 26 February 2023
14:15 h
Het Concertgebouw, Kleine zaal

Pearls in Baroque lead by artistic director Noriko Amano is staging a musically and visually varied programme including J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg concerto no. 5 and a part from Les Nation by François Couperin. By performing baroque dances, the 15-year-old Emily van Baaren will show the audience what this music was written for.

Brandenburg concert no. 5
The Brandenburg concertos are named after the fact that in 1721 J.S. Bach dedicated them to Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg. In the dedication, which incidentally reads like an open application to a position at the Margrave’s Court, Bach himself called them Six Concerts with various instruments. With a duration of more than 20 minutes, the fifth Brandenburg concerto the longest of the six. It is special because the harpsichord (clavecimbel) plays a prominent solo part. Besides there are solo parts for flute (traverso) and baroque violin. Together the solo instruments form the concertino, the soloists in a concerto grosso (baroque orchestra).

Les Nations
Francois Couperin was composer and musical director at the court of Louis XIV in Versailles at the beginning of the eighteenth century. In the footsteps of female court composer Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, in his opulent masterpiece Les Nations, Couperin combined the Italian with the French style. Remarkably, his Italian predecessor Lully had banned the Italian style from the French Court. The first part of L’Imperiale is Italian, the following parts are typically French. These French parts were originally meant for court dance. The talented violinist and baroque dancer Emily van Baaren (15) will show how that is done.

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