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From Brahms' library
11.02.2011On Saturday 12 February the Nederlands Kamerkoor began touring the country with a new series of concerts, once again conducted by our chief conductor-elect Risto Joost, under the title “From Brahms’s library.”
Johannes Brahms was born in Hamburg, in a time that was ripe for the rediscovery of Renaissance and Baroque music. Until the first decades of the 19th century this music had largely lain gathering dust in old libraries and monasteries. Over the centuries music had been primarily ‘occasional’, ever susceptible to new fashions and influences, and the custom of performing music from previous ages simply hadn’t existed. [...]
This changed during the first half of the 19th century, under the influence of the Romantic predilection for the past. Composers and scholars, but also amateurs (literally the genuine ‘lovers’,) wanted to know more about the history of music, techniques and traditions, the roots of the music of their own time.
During rehearsal
On the one hand this attention was focussed on folk music, but new interest was also aroused in Baroque and Renaissance music. During the search for the masters of yesteryear, many lost treasures came to the surface, which were subsequently published in beautiful new editions, so that this music became available to everyone. Brahms followed these developments closely. He was a real bookworm: from the age of 15 he built up a large library full of novels, poetry and above all sheet music, and developed a great love of music, with Bach, Palestrina and Gabrieli included among his favourites. Brahms studied their compositions in great detail, and also performed them with his own chamber choir.
Brahms’s library
Paul Hillier, who was originally to conduct this project, has compiled for the Nederlands Kamerkoor a well-balanced programme consisting of motets and songs by Brahms as well as some of his favourite early music, including works by Isaac, Eccard, Gabrieli and Palestrina. Conductor Risto Joost (our future chief conductor but also a pupil of Paul Hillier) can be relied on to produce a fresh and compelling performance of the flowing polyphony from the Renaissance, echoes of which will resound in the more earthly compositions of Brahms himself.
Concerts & tickets:
12 February, Grote Kerk, Naarden
15 February, Musis Sacrum, Arnhem
16 February, Grote of Jacobijnerkerk, Leeuwarden
17 February, Waalse Kerk, Amsterdam
18 February, Pieterskerk, Utrecht
19 February, Nieuwe Kerk, Den Haag
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