Magnificat to Perform in Palo Alto, Berkeley and San Francisco in December

The San Francisco Early Music Society will present MAGNIFICAT in a program featuring the brilliant polychoral music of Francesco Cavalli. A Venetian Christmas Mass sets Cavalli's Missa concertata, one of his grandest and most celebratory works, in liturgical sequence for the third mass on Christmas Day interspersed with Gregorian chant, as well as sacred motets and instrumental works by Claudio Monteverdi, Massimiliano Neri, Biagio Marini and Giovanni Gabrieli.

Perhaps the greatest Venetian opera composer of the seventeenth century, Cavalli wrote nearly three dozen works for the stage. Yet in addition to his work in the theater, Cavalli served in the Cappella Marciana, the renowned musical ensemble of the Basilica of San Marco, an institution with which he was associated for sixty years first as a singer, then as organist and finally as maestro di cappella. In this capacity, and for the position he held at the Church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, Cavalli wrote a significant body of sacred music.

Drawn from his monumental 1656 collection Musiche sacre, Cavalli's mass is in a mixed style that combines older Palestrinian counterpoint with Gabrielian polychoral techniques and the expressive recitative style used in operas and continuo madrigals. The eight-voice setting "exudes a confident brilliance and solemn grandeur, well suited to the celebration of the Holy Nativity, though it was most likely composed to mark the occasion of a 1644 peace treaty between Rome and Parma," points out Magnificat Artistic Director Warren Stewart.

"The Mass also displays the innovative theatrical styles that Cavalli had explored in his music for the stage, and he effortlessly incorporates the dramatic gestures and sharply contrasting textures found in his operas into his concertato settings of the liturgical text. There are even passages of secco recitative, the most idiomatic feature of early opera."

Vocalists Clara Rottsolk, Jennifer Paulino, Andrew Rader, Tim Galloway, Daniel Hutchings,Christopher LeCluyse, Peter Becker and Robert Stafford will perform A Venetian Christmas Massalongside Rob Diggins and Jolianne von Einem (violins); Richard Van Hessel, Erik Schmalz andMack Ramsey (sackbuts); John Dornenburg (violone); and Yuko Tanaka (organ).

For over twenty years Magnificat has explored the emotionally charged music of the 17th century, each season bringing together an ensemble of internationally recognized musicians. Under the artistic direction of Stewart, Magnificat has offered Bay Area audiences the chance to hear many significant works by well-known figures of the 17th century while also uncovering forgotten masterpieces, including many modern premieres.

Over the past two decades Stewart has established himself as one of the most dynamic and engaging early music specialists in America. He has received critical praise for his innovative programming and the emotional intensity of his performances of an extraordinarily wide range of repertoire from William Byrd and Claudio Monteverdi to Terry Riley and Arvo Pärt. Through his work with Magnificat, Stewart has established a reputation for expressive and thought-provoking interpretations of standard repertoire and modern premieres of forgotten masterworks, prepared modern editions of numerous works and reconstructions of historic Roman and Lutheran liturgies.

With Magnificat, Stewart has appeared at the Berkeley Festival and Exhibition, the Bloomington Early Music Festival, the Tropical Baroque Festival, Music Before 1800, Seattle Early Music Guild, Carmel Bach Festival, as well as the San Francisco Early Music Society concert series. He conducted and produced Magnificat's recording of Cavalieri's Rappresentatione di Anima e di Corpo for Koch International and was artistic director for Magnificat's recordings of the complete works of Chiara Margarita Cozzolani for Musica Omnia.

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