Early Masters of the German Baroque

Heinrich Schütz and Johann Hermann Schein were leaders of the generation that revolutionized German sacred music by introducing the new, expressive Italian style to their vocal compositions. Schein’s Opella nova (1618) was one of the earliest and most influential collections to demonstrate the new, Baroque style.

Twenty-five years later, Schütz published the Geistliche Chor-Musik to show his contemporaries and successors the power the older, Renaissance style still held. The Bach Choir and Concentus, with organ, cellos, and violone, will perform selections from these major collections, which encapsulate the changes of musical vision that occurred during this revolutionary century.