Ensemble Le Nuove Musiche – ‘Let us meet again’

The transition from the Renaissance to the Baroque. A musical journey that begins at the court of the Gonzagas in Mantua and ends at the court of the English king. It’s a celebration, and everyone’s there to perform something wonderful!

Programme notes

Around 1600, the musical landscape of Europe underwent a radical transformation. The Renaissance gave way to the Baroque, and composers began to seek new ways to bring emotions, stories and texts to life. At the same time, political and religious developments led musicians to travel across Europe, bringing new influences back to their own countries.

In ‘Let us meet again’, Ensemble Le Nuove Musiche explores this musical exchange between Italy, France, England and the Low Countries. The programme demonstrates how styles influenced one another and how composers, despite differences in language and tradition, found inspiration in one another’s work. A journey through the European musical centres of the early seventeenth century, from the innovative music of Monteverdi and his contemporaries to English and French court culture.

As is customary with Ensemble Le Nuove Musiche, the music is accompanied by stories and background information. This creates a vivid picture of an era in which art, politics and religion were closely intertwined.

The musicians

Ensemble Le Nuove Musiche
Ensemble Le Nuove Musiche was founded in 2006 with the aim of performing vocal music from the first half of the seventeenth century to a high standard. The musicians immerse themselves intensively in historical performance practice and pay close attention to the relationship between music and text. This results in performances that are not only musically refined, but also immediately engaging and moving.

The ensemble focuses on music from a period of great change in Europe, when new musical ideas emerged and composers experimented with expression, drama and the interpretation of text. At the same time, Ensemble Le Nuove Musiche constantly seeks to connect with the present. The questions that preoccupied artists and thinkers around 1600 prove to be surprisingly relevant today. It is precisely for this reason that this music still captures the imagination four centuries later.

Performers
Janneke Stoute – soprano
Sophia Faltas – alto
Cassandra Luckhardt – viola da gamba
Krijn Koetsveld – harpsichord