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HEAVENLY LOVE: SACRED ARIAS FOR COUNTER-TENOR

Wednesday August 9, 2017 | 7:30PM (Pre-concert talk at 6:45)
Christ Church Cathedral

In the wake of the musical revolution around the year 1600, composers began to set religious texts using the expressive ‘avant garde’ musical language we now call Baroque. Although categorized as ‘sacred’, most pieces in this programme might never have been performed in church. Instead, they were probably intended for entertainment, or for private devotion in family homes – reflecting the way belief permeated all aspects of life in pre-enlightenment society. Using the diverse colours of counter-tenor, lute, organ, and viola da gamba, this programme presents music by Buxtehude, Schütz, Purcell, Strozzi, etc., and explores their heartfelt and passionate responses to these beautiful texts.

Described as a “rising star of the counter-tenor world”, Alex Potter is a sought-after interpreter of seventeenth and eighteenth-century music. He performs and records regularly with conductors including Philippe Herreweghe, Thomas Hengelbrock, Lars Ulrik Mortensen, Jos van Veldhoven, Peter Neumann, Paul Goodwin, and Frieder Bernius.

This concert will be preceded by a free screening of Castrato at 4pm. The 60 minute documentary investigates the private and public world of the castrati – celebrated 18th-century male singers whose voices remained unbroken due to castration in childhood. A unique new experiment attempts to recreate the true sound of this lost voice.