Early Music Vancouver performs Christmas carols from over 400 years ago
Concerts in Victoria and Vancouver will feature the music of 17th-century German composter Michael Praetorius
Audiences attending an Early Music Vancouver concert this month will be transported back in time through music to a sunset service in a Lutheran Church in Germany over 400 years ago — but without the lengthy religious lecture.
"There will no sermon," laughed David Fallis, the conductor and music director for the Praetorius Christmas Vespers.
"But all the musical elements we are trying to recreate."
The sackbut and other early instruments
The concert takes place in Victoria at Christ Church Cathedral on Dec. 19 and at the Chan Centre in Vancouver on Dec. 20, and is also being performed in Seattle and Portland.
To reconstruct what a 17th-century service, or vespers, would've sounded like, the orchestra will use instruments from that period.
These include the sackbut, an early trombone, and the cornetto, which Fallis said is "like a cross between a trumpet and a recorder."
"It's a recorder in that it's basically a long wooden tube with holes, but it's like a trumpet in that it has a little trumpet-shaped mouth piece."
Praetorius' legacy
The music for these services in the 17th century — which could be considered as early Christmas carols — were composed by Michael Praetorius , who was born towards the end of the 16th century.
"He is one of the most important composer who, along with some of his colleagues … introduced some of these new Italian baroque styles into German music, and of course that leads to the great flowering of wonderful German baroque music which I think reaches its epitome in J.S. Bach."
Fallis said that, like Bach, Praetorius was a Lutheran composer, working at a time when the German reformed Christian traditions had decided that the music for church should be in the language spoken by the people, and not in Latin, as the Catholic church believed it should be in.
"They loved echo effects, they loved antiphonal effects where the sound would come from different places in the church," said Fallis, who added that he plans to have some of the musicians rush up to the balconies at the Chan Centre to recreate that "sort of surround sound."
"We're going to have a lot of fun with it."
Audiences will also be invited to join in singing some of the early Christmas carols.
The concert is is presented through a partnership between the Early Music Society of the Islands, Early Music Vancouver, Portland Baroque Orchestra and the Early Music Guild of Seattle.