Events

Spiritual Concerts: Music for the Royal Chapel. PACIFIC BAROQUE FESTIVAL 2012 “MUSIC FOR THE SUN KING”

South Vancouver Island

Sat. February 11th, 2012 8:00pm - 9:30pm

Discover the musical brilliance of Versailles and beyond. This concert presents music for famed choir and orchestra of La Chapelle Royale as well as instrumental music for the Concert Spirituel, the first public concert series anywhere. Features the Requiem of Jean Gilles, the most frequently performed Requiem of the period, played at the funerals of Louis XV and Rameau, today sung by the Victoria Children’s Choir, winners of this summer’s ‘Summa cum laude’ international competition in Vienna.

The French court at the time of the Sun King, Louis XIV, was an age of artistic splendour, with lavish spectacles and musical entertainments, and richly instrumented music for the church and Parisian concert life. To further his political ends, Louis invested in the arts, determined to make them a metaphor of political stability. He attracted to his court some of Europe’s most enlightened composers who in many ways revolutionized music.

Pacific Baroque Festival 2012 presents music written for the 17th and 18th century French courts, and will show how French music at the Court at Versailles influenced two great German composers, Telemann and Bach.

This concert is the first of five Festival events.