Wednesdays at 10:00 pm
A fresh feast of early music every week.
Join host Candice Agree for WFMT’s exciting weekly program of early music. Baroque&Before explores works written before 1750, featuring live concert recordings from some of the world’s most prestigious early music festivals, as well as commercially released recordings from WFMT’s vast library. From Russia to the Americas, from Northern Europe to the Mediterranean and Middle East, Candice presents internationally known artists on the early music scene, crafting a delightful mix of musicianship, music, and history.
The Schwanengesang of Heinrich Schütz
September 30, 2020
Known as the Father of German Music, Heinrich Schütz had a profound influence on generations of composers who followed. Tonight, we hear his final opus, his Schwanengesang, if you will: a monumental setting of all 176 verses of Psalm 119, plus Psalm 100, and his fourth and final setting of the Deutsches Magnificat. The RIAS Chamber Chorus, Capella de la ...
Ensemble Cantoría: Gossip in the Renaissance
October 7, 2020
The vocal quartet Cantoría has its origins in the Early Music Department of the Catalonian College of Music (ESMUC). Specializing in music of Iberian Golden Age, Cantoría presents a program of vocal treasures by great Spanish of the Renaissance. Recorded live in concert in the Auditori March 10, 2020, as part of the Barcelona Emergents Music Festival. Tonight’s program will ...
Solomon Rossi & His Contemporaries
September 23, 2020
For the Jewish High Holy Days, Soprano Sherezade Panthaki joins Philharmonia Baroque Chamber Players and members of the Philharmonia Chorale, under the direction of Nicholas McGegan, for Italian baroque music of the synagogue, the theater, and the court: sacred and secular works by Salamone Rossi, Claudio Monteverdi, and Benedetto Marcello. Tonight’s program was recorded live in concert April 8, 2018, ...
Ignacio Prego: El Canto del Cavallero
September 16, 2020
Spanish harpsichordist Ignacio Prego presents a program of keyboard music at the Spanish Court during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. It’s a fascinating musical journey through three centuries of Spanish keyboard music, starting with the Court of Felipe II. This was Baroque&Before’s inaugural program, first heard January 2, 2014. Recorded live in concert October 31, 2013 at Instituto Cervantes ...
Jordi Savall: Works by Diego Ortiz & Joan Cererols
September 9, 2020
This week’s program begins at 10:30pm, following an encore presentation by Music of the Baroque of Mendelssohn’s oratorio “Elijah.” Jordi Savall and La Capella Reial bring to life works by two composers from Spain with a Neapolitan connection: Toledo-born composer and music theorist Diego Ortiz, and Catalan musician and Benedictine monk Joan Cererols. Performances come from recordings from Classical WFMT’s ...
Venetian Baroque Masterpieces
September 2, 2020
Violinist Dmitry Sinkovsky, cellist Ilze Grudule, and harpsichordist Ieva Saliete present masterpieces of the Baroque of the Venetian School: works by composers who flourished in the Republic of Venice in the 17th and 18th centuries. Recorded live in concert July 10, 2019 in Riga’s Mazajā ģildē (Small Guild Hall) as part of the International Festival of Early Music. Thanks to ...
Baroque&Before Remembers Julian Bream
August 26, 2020
It is difficult to summarize in a few words the contribution to music made by Julian Bream, the English guitarist and lutenist who died August 14 at the age of 87. Along with Andrés Segovia, Bream is regarded as the most charismatic and influential classical guitarist of the 20th century. Although his repertoire spanned the centuries, on this edition of ...
The Great Eighteen: Bach’s Leipzig Chorales
August 19, 2020
Written in the last decade of his life, Bach’s chorale preludes for organ mark the pinnacle of his sacred works for organ. Daniel Gauss, organist at the Bern Cathedral, plays the Gottlieb Leuw organ, built in 1729. Recorded live in concert June 11, 2019, as part of the series Evening Music at Bern Cathedral. Thanks to WFMT’s association with the ...
Les chemins hébraïques du baroque
August 12, 2020
Passionate about Hebraic spiritual traditions, Benedetto Marcello was inspired by the extraordinary faith he encountered in the synagogues of early 18th-century Venice. Selections from Marcello’s settings of poetic paraphrases of the Psalms of David with Hebraic intonations are presented by Ensemble XVIII-21 Le Baroque Nomade, founded in 1995 by Jean-Christope Frisch as XVIII-21 Musique de Lumières. A world premiere, recorded ...
Tiana Early Music Festival: Organs tell songs; Los órganos dizen chaçones
August 5, 2020
Guillermo Pérez presents 14th-century music performed on the iconic 14th and 15th century keyboard known as the organetto. Tonight’s recital was recorded live in concert June 6, 2018, in Tiana, Barcelona’s Chapel of Our Lady of Joy, an 11th century hermitage, as the closing recital of the Tiana Early Music Festival. Thanks to WFMT’s association with the European Broadcasting Union, ...
Hildegard von Bingen’s Ordo Virtutum
July 29, 2020
Twelfth-century mystic, writer, philosopher, and composer Hildegard von Bingen used all her gifts in the service of her unfaltering Christian faith which she channeled through her music in the morality play Ordo Virtutum (Order of the Virtues.) Comprising 82 songs in rhyme, Hildegard lays out the battle between good and evil; the Devil tempting the Soul to give in to ...
Mediæval Spain’s Five Kingdoms
July 22, 2020
Roman, Germanic, Byzantine, French, Arabic, and Jewish cultures all contributed to Spanish music. This week, a program of vocal music from Spain from the 13th-17th centuries: settings of secular and sacred texts by Tomás Luis de Victoria and Mateo Flecha the Elder, plus anonymous Sephardic and Navarrese love songs, reflecting the mix of cultures throughout the Five Kingdoms of Mediæval ...
Bernardo Pasquini & The Martyrdom of Saint Vitus
July 15, 2020
The legend of Saint Vitus, with a cruel Roman emperor, exorcism, miracles, and martyrdom in the Colosseum, was not enough drama for 17th-century Roman nobility; it needed a love story too! In Pasquini’s oratorio, the emperor’s son of legend becomes Valeria, the pretty emperor’s daughter who falls in love with Vitus. Now, that’s entertainment! On this edition of Baroque&Before we’ll ...
Sound Out of Silence: The Baroque Clavichord
July 8, 2020
Early keyboardist Terence Charlston presents the first recording on clavichord of the complete fantasias and canzonas from Johann Jacob Froberger’s Libro Secondo, written in 1649. Dedicated to Ferdinand III, the Libro Secondo, as were almost all of Forbergers works, was not published during the composer’s lifetime. Tonight’s recital comes from the CD “Froberger: Complete Fantasia and Canzonas; Terence Charlston, harpsichord; ...
La Stagione: Liebe, was ist schöner als die Liebe
July 1, 2020
Like many other composers of his time, Georg Philipp Telemann repeatedly addressed the theme of love in his operas and cantatas; among them, so-called wedding cantatas, commissioned by wealthy bridal couples for their wedding celebrations. One of these, Liebe, was ist schöner als die Liebe, receives its modern day premiere on this week’s program, along with two more Telemann secular ...
The Fortunes of Andromeda and Perseus: Spain’s First Opera
June 24, 2020
This week, Baroque&Before has the rare pleasure of presenting a performance of a work not performed publicly since the mid 17th century, or commercially recorded. Considered Spain’s first opera, tonight’s presentation of Las Fortunas de Andrómeda y Perseo comes to us from a recording made live in concert January 25, 2020 at the Konzerthaus in Vienna as part of the ...
La petite merveille & il Arcangelo
June 10, 2020
Violinist Lina Tur-Bonet and harpsichordist Kenneth Weiss invite us on a journey through the music of Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, known as “La petite merveille” (The Little Marvel) and Il Arcangelo (Arcangelo Corelli.) Recorded live in concert February 14, 2019, in the Barcelona History Museum’s Capella de Santa Àgata (Saint Agnes Chapel) as part of Festival Llums d’Antiga (Lights ...
ORA Singers: Settings of Miserere – Songs of Hope
June 3, 2020
The ORA Singers presents a program of Settings of the Miserere from Allegri to Byrd to Tallis. Recorded live in concert June 7, 2019 in St. Peter’s Cathedral in Regensburg, as part of the Regensburg Early Music Festival. Thanks to Classical WFMT’s association with the European Broadcasting Union, we’re able to offer tonight’s program as a stream for 30 days ...
Heinrich Schütz: Musikalische Exequien
May 27, 2020
Heinrich Schütz wrote Musikalische Exequien, Op. 7, the centerpiece of tonight’s program, upon the request of German Count Heinreich II of Reuss-Gera. It includes texts taken from the Old Testament, the gospels, and Lutheran chorales. Schütz most probably wrote it when he was Italy, where he became interested in and able to compose music to capture the meanings and imagery ...
Codex Calixtinus: Vespers of Saint James
May 20, 2020
Since the ninth century, the routes to Santiago de Compostela leading to the sanctuary of St. James have attracted countless pilgrims and exercised a potent mystique. What has achieved less attention is the music originally sung during the services in honor of the saint. Marcel Pérès’s in-depth study of the Codex Calixtinus, preserved at the Cathedral of Santiago, has led ...
Jordi Savall: El Llibre Vermell de Montserrat
May 13, 2020
The Shrine of the Virgin of Montserrat was a major pilgrimage site in the 14th century. El Llibre Vermell de Montserrat, or the Red Book of Montserrat, is a 14th-century collection of devotional texts and music for the pilgrims to the Catalonian Montserrat Monastery. Tonight we hear selections from the 6 music folios contained in El Llibre Vermell, presented by ...
Masses by Joan Cererols with Jordi Savall
May 6, 2020
Born in 1618, Joan Cererols was the first great composer of the Catalan Baroque. Jordi Savall leads the Jove Capella Reial de Catalunya in two works that have brought Cererols world renown: Missa pro defunctis and Missa de batalla. Recorded live in concert April 4, 2018 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the birth of Joan Cererols, in Barcelona’s L’Auditori, as part ...
