Kent Sweitzer
Holiday stage with musicians and a Christmas tree.
Madison Bach Musicians in a 2017 holiday concert.
For its 12th annual holiday season, the Madison Bach Musicians will present a Latin American Baroque concert, the first of its kind for the popular period performance group. Trevor Stephenson, Madison Bach Musicians’ artistic director, says Latin American Baroque fare is being performed by other groups in the U.S. and Europe, too: “Much of the music from that time has survived, and there’s mountains of repertoire. It’s spectacular.”
In the past, the group focused more on the West European Baroque masters, like Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi. But this season the group will focus on composers like Fernández, Padilla, and Salazar from Spain and the New World. After the Spanish monarchy sponsored the 1492 voyage of Christopher Columbus, Spain’s influence as a world power spread as far as Mexico, the Americas, and beyond, a vast area sometimes called New Spain.
While many of the songs in the program are in Spanish, Spanish composers in the New World often wrote sacred music in Indigenous languages and a few songs in the concert fall into this category. The opening processional hymn, the anonymous work “Hanacpachap Cussicuinin” (“The Bliss of Heaven”), is in Quechua, spoken in the Peruvian Andes. Gaspar Fernández’s “Xicochi Conetzintle” (“Hush Little Child”) is in Nahuatl, spoken by the central Mexican descendants of the Aztecs. Fernández, from Portugal, worked at a cathedral in Guatemala before taking up his position as chapel master at the Puebla Cathedral in Mexico. He seems comfortable with the Aztec language in “Xicochi,” a peaceful song with an easy lilt.
The ensemble will also perform two villancicos by Fernández’s Spanish protege, Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla. “Villancicos are popular songs in the vernacular,” says Stephenson. “They’re in two parts with a stanza and refrain.” “A La Jácara Jacarilla” celebrates the birth of Jesus with a distinctive rhythm in the words. Syncopation (accent on the offbeat) makes it feel a little off-kilter, but that’s its charm.
The program’s centerpiece is a Latin Mass, Misa a San Ignacio, by Domenico Zipoli, an Italian composer who became popular in churches in South America before his early death. While listening to the Mass on YouTube, I thought it was one of the loveliest I’d heard. The florid singing, beautiful choral writing, and intriguing tempo variations makes for piquant storytelling.
The concert includes both a bullfight and a guitar. Composer Gaspar Sanz takes care of the guitar with two lovely pieces, “Españoletas” and “Canarios.” Diego José de Salazar will let the bull out of the stall, figuratively speaking, with “¡Salga el torillo hosquillo!,” a choral work that combines the birth of Jesus and a bullfight.
It’s easy to feel swept up by the rhythms of much of this music. “If you can’t get your hands on some maracas, you’ll feel like you’re missing out,” says Stephenson.
The music will be in the hands of experts who know Baroque performance practices. Singers will include Grammy award-winning soprano Estelí Gomez; mezzo-soprano Clara Osowski, a prize winner in Madison’s Handel Aria Competition; tenor James Reese, celebrated Baroque interpreter; and baritone Ryne Cherry, velvety-voiced interpreter of both old and new music.
On the instrumental side are violinists Kangwon Kim, assistant artistic director and concertmaster of the Madison Bach Musicians, and Nathan Giglierano, who also makes violins and violas. Cellist James Waldo is a lecturer in strings at UW-Madison. Harpsichordist Trevor Stephenson has introduced Madison audiences to the fascinating world of Baroque music and instruments for over two decades. Master guitarist Timothy Steis has performed on classical guitar nights at Cafe CODA and also makes guitars. And percussionist Sean Kleve is music director of Madison’s experimental, contemporary percussion ensemble Clocks in Motion.
The concert, Dec. 11 at the First Congregational Church in Madison, will be preceded by a lecture at 2:45 p.m. with the music beginning at 3:30 p.m. The event will also be livestreamed and available on demand. For ticket information, see madisonbachmusicians.org.
“It’s wonderful to explore other languages and the beautiful things written in them,” says Stephenson. “This concert will show that there’s a wealth of music around the world, so take a deep dive and see what appeals to you.”
