In this atmospheric Christmas programme, B’Rock and soprano Elisabeth Hetherington, follow the star of the Baroque across Europe, with a few surprises along the way.
First stop: Corelli’s Italy, with the iconic eighth concerto grosso from Opus 6, subtitled ‘for Christmas Eve’. In the closing pastorale of Alessandro Scarlatti’s moving cantata O di Betlemme altera, you can hear the humming bagpipes of the shepherds in the fields.
For vocal fireworks, Hetherington turns to Handel and his virtuoso Gloria, a recently rediscovered composition from his earliest years in Italy.
After a journey through Purcell’s England, the tour leads to France, where Charpentier transformed traditional noels into instrumental gems. A traditional German Christmas carol is also on the programme.
We then find ourselves in the 20th century – how could it be otherwise? – with, amongst others, Arvo Pärt’s Christmas Lullaby, Luciano Berio’s I Wonder as I Wander, and excerpts from the cycle The Confession Stone by Owen Dodson, set to music by Robert Fleming, who, like Hetherington, hails from Canada.
This production is realized with the support of the Tax Shelter measure of the Belgian Federal Government through Flanders Tax Shelter.
