The Valletta Baroque Festival is this weeking a full programme of concerts exploring various aspects of this musical form. 

Today’s programme kicks off at 10am with Exploring Bach’s Cantatas at St Paul’s Anglican Pro-Cathedral in Valletta. This lecture performance will give insights into the baroque genius’s expressions via this musical form.

Sandy Burnett, one of the UK’s most authoritative broadcasters in the field of classical music, will walk the audience through the works while they are actually being performed.

Later on in the day, at 7.30pm,  the Abchordis Ensemble, directed by Andrea Buccarella, will highlight masterpieces of Neapolitan Baroque such as the Dies Irae by Gennaro Manna (1715-1779) and the Stabat Mater by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-1736) in a concert at the church of St Catherine in Żurrieq.

Tomorrow at 11.30am, the Ensemble Barocco di Napoli and Abchordis Ensemble will present  the concert Il Soffio di Partenope, offering a Neapolitan repertoire by Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725), Nicola Fiorenza (ca. 1700- 1764) and Aniello Santangelo (ca. 1700-1771).  These works were written during the 1670s specifically for a powerful school of wind instrument players that established themselves in Naples.

Scarlatti’s Sonata VII in D Major for recorder, 2 violins and basso continuo; Fiorenza’s Concert in G minor for recorder, three violins and basso continuo and Santangelo’s Concert in E minor for transverse flute, violins and basso continuo are among the pieces that will be performed at the Manoel Theatre.

The Abchordis Ensemble

At 3.30pm, the musical era of the Renaissance and its rich diminution traditions will take centre stage at the Verdala Palace. Renaissance instruments like the recorder and viola da gamba have many a time been categorised as belonging to the baroque.  However, they were redeveloped during the later era to satisfy developing musical requirements.

Among others, the Capriccio Stravagante Trio will play masterpieces by Marin Marais (1656-1728) and Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), including Bach’s Sonata in F for Flute and Basso Continuo, BWV 1035 and Marais’s Suite de Pièces de Violes, Livre 5.

The evening concert Di Sospiri e di Tempeste will showcase vocal and instrumental masterpieces by Vivaldi and Handel. This concert, which starts at 7.30pm at the Manoel Theatre, will highlight the descriptive aspects of baroque aesthetics which has to do with both the natural world as well as with the soul.

The Ensemble Barocco di Napoli with Tommaso Rossi (flute) and Maria Grazia Schiavo (soprano) will be performing vocal and instrumental pieces by Vivaldi and Handel to demonstrate this.

For more information about the various concerts, visit www.vallettabaroquefestival.mt. Tickets are available from www.kultura.mt.