Compiled by our Classical Music desk.
We still remember 2020 as the year that brought us the COVID-19 pandemic. Did we record any concerts that year?
For many, just mentioning the year 2020 will trigger a feeling of aversion. Either because they lost a loved one or they got sick themselves, or simply from being in quarantine a lot of the time and having to follow social distancing measures, like staying two meters apart and wearing a facemask all the time.
In this episode, we will play you three short concerts that were recorded during that plagued year. We start with a concert from January, when not much seemed amiss: COVID-19 was sweeping through far-away China and seemed like just another influenza virus to most people anyway. They enjoyed the finale of the lordens violin competition as if they hadn’t a care in the world.
At the beginning of March though, things had changed. The virus had spread around The Netherlands by that time and it had become clear that it could pose a real threat, especially to the elderly. The richly adorned Mass at St. John’s Cathedral in Den Bosch, including Renaissance polyphony and Gregorian antiphony, became one of the last concerts to be recorded before lockdown started.
Not many new COVID-cases were added during the summer, so restrictions could be eased somewhat, resulting in a few concert performances. Though it turned out to be only temporarily, as the virus started to spread again during autumn. Our third concert from the beginning of October was one of the last ones to take place. And during this concert it’s none other than the Ensemble Corona that brought a program filled with Renaissance music — its central theme being the plague, and it took place in the Gasthuis Leeuwenbergh in Utrecht.
Playlist
- Henryk Wieniawski – Legend, opus 17
- Hans Sitt – Bolero, opus 73 no. 20
- Max Bruch – Finale from Violin concerto in G minor, opus 26
- Ernest Bloch – Nigun from Baal Shem
- Max Moszkowski – Guitarre, opus 45 no. 2
- gregorian – Salve sancta parens (processional)
- Pierre de la Rue – Missa Cum jucunditate: Kyrie
- Pierre de la Rue – Missa Cum jucunditate: Gloria
- Lupus Hellinck – Missa Mater patris en filia: Sanctus
- Jean Mouton – Tua est potentia (motet)
- Jean Mouton – Missa Tua est potentia: Agnus Dei
- gregorian – Dixit Dominus (Vesper psalm)
- gregorian – Oculi tui (antiphon)
- gregorian – Tota pulchra es (antiphon)
- Jacobus Clemens non Papa – Ego flos campi
- anonymus – Stella caeli exstirpavit
- Pierre Busnois – Fortuna desperata
- Gilles Binchois – Dueil angoisseus
- Guillaume Dufay – Vergine bella
- Francisco de la Torre – Alta danza
- De pest (The plague) (text)
- anonymus – Santo guerrier
- Claude le Jeune – Tristitia obsedit me
- Jacques Moderne – Bassedanse Ta bonne grace
- Jacques Moderne – Bansle simple; Tourdion
- Josquin Desprez – De profundis
- De Utrechtse pestkuur
- Jheronimus Vinders – O mors inevitabilis
- Bartolomeo Tromboncino – Si è debile
- Jean Richarfort – O quam dulcis
- Claude le Jeune – Revecy venir du Printans
- Bartolomeo Tromboncino – Si è debile (fourth verse)
Performers lordens Violin competition
Emily van Baaren, violin (1, 2)
Marcel Sutedja, violin (3)
Adinda van Delft, violin (4, 5)
Natasja Douma, piano
