In 2016, the four hundredth anniversary of William Shakespeare's death, we were happy to bring a concert of soprano duets, male and female, to the Festival of European Church Music in Schwäbisch Gmünd as well as the Konzerte Wehrheim. Taking as a point of departure the prototypical star cross'd lovers, Romeo and Juliet, we have assembled a program of unhappy lovers, from Monteverdi's Nero and Poppea to Zingarelli's Romeo e Giulietta, making stops along the way for Purcell's Dido, Handel's Cesare and Cleopatra and others, less well known to history, but just as beautifully composed. The highlight will be the, to the best of our knowledge, first ever modern performances of Johann Ernst Galliard's wonderful duo chamber cantata, 1728's Hymn of Adam and Eve, from the fifth book of John Milton's Paradise Lost.
We are delighted to be joined by soprano Annette Fischer, of Vienna for these concerts: our Dido, our Juliet, and our Eve.
Also a part of our celebration of the works of Shakespeare, Robert and Sigrun are presenting an intimate evening of Lute Songs as well as solo pieces for the lute actually played and sung in Shakespeare's plays, often during his lifetime, combined with other songs of the same, late Elizabethan/early Stuardian theatrical genre. Composers represented include John Dowland, John Danyel, Thomas Morley and Robert Johnson.
January 17, 2016 19:30 pm, at the Festeburgkirche in Frankfurt am Main, A concert of John Dowland and his Contemporaries with Lux et Umbrae: with Sigrun Richter, laute and Michael Eberth, Cembalo, as part of the Festburgkonzerte. Highlights: John Dowland's "Flow my tears" and "In darkness let me dwell" John Danyel's "Like as the Lute" and "Mrs. M. E., Her er funerall teares." Nicolas Lanier's "Hero's Complaint" Also solo works for cembalo and lute by John Bull and Giovanni Kapsberger and, naturally, by Dowland.
