Baroque – Gathering Note

Handel Week Festival opens in Oak Park with concerti and a Roman rarity

Each February for the past 27 years, Dennis Northway has convened musicians to perform the work of George Frideric Handel in Oak Park. Not the Messiah that appears with metronomic regularity each Christmas, nor even the Water Music or Royal Fireworks that surface on classical radio, but the unfamiliar catalog that gradually receded from public memory after Handel’s death. Even after relocating from Chicagoland to the Pacific Northwest, Northway has returned annually to sustain this unlikely tradition.

That there is a Handel Week Festival at all feels something like a miracle. The composer who once dominated European musical life now occupies a peculiar position: universally recognized for a single oratorio, largely unknown for everything else. Yet here, in the sanctuary of Pilgrim Congregational Church, the thread holds.

Experience Handel’s Water Music on the Chicago River

After last year’s debut, Music of the Baroque is bringing back The Chicago Water Music to the Chicago River on Wednesday, September 10th. Dame Jane Glover will once again lead the ensemble from aboard the “Bright Star” as it travels from Ogden Slip to Merchandise Mart, but this year comes with an ambitious new twist: a citywide singalong.

The program follows the same winning formula: highlights from Handel’s Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks, plus choral favorites, but adds “Hallelujah, Chicago,” inviting the entire city to join in singing the “Hallelujah” Chorus from Messiah.

Music of the Baroque’s Theodora is free to view for a limited time

In the lead up to Music of the Baroque’s emerald anniversary season, they are making last season’s performances free to view for a limited time. This week, Handel’s Theodora is on offer.

Handel’s Theodora isn’t one of his most frequently performed works, but those who know it tend to hold it close. Premiered in 1750 and largely overlooked in its day, this oratorio trades the grandiosity of Messiah for something more poignant and intimate. It tells the story of a Christian martyr and her Roman lover, not with bombast, but with music of startling tenderness and quiet strength. Music of the Baroque’s performance invites a fresh hearing of a work that Handel himself considered one of his best.

Catch it while you can.

Minkowski Takes Leap from Baroque to Classical with Jupiter and Les Boréades

_{Marc Minkowski, Photo Credit: Benjamin Chelly}

Originally published on Seen and Heard International

Gods and mythology long influenced music, especially during the Baroque and Classical periods. This era saw a cultural shift, drawing greater and greater inspiration from pre-Christian societies. The larger-than-life characters of mythology offered spectacle and theatricality, especially for Baroque opera. They provided dramatic material for the genre, fueling its growth. But beyond entertainment, these stories also offered allegory and moral lessons, appealing to audiences seeking philosophical themes. This realm of gods, myth, and magic formed a loose programmatic thread through the January program of Chicago’s Music of the Baroque. The evening in Harris Theater off the city’s Michigan Avenue featured three pieces from different music “gods” and Marc Minkowski’s debut with the orchestra.