Ensemble Caprice Announces Bay Area Concerts

The San Francisco Early Music Society (SFEMS) is pleased to welcome back Montreal-based Ensemble Caprice, celebrating its 30th anniversary this season. Ensemble Caprice will perform a program inspired by love stories from five countries with works by Bach, Purcell, Falconieri, Schmelzer, Vivaldi and more.

Concerts of Ensemble Caprice will take place at 8 p.m. Friday, April 12 at First Presbyterian Church in Palo Alto; at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 13 at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Berkeley; and at 4 p.m. Sunday, April 14 at St. Mark's Lutheran Church in San Francisco. Individual tickets, $12 to $45, are available for purchase online at sfems.org.

Under the direction of Matthias Maute, recorder, and Sophie Larivière, recorder and flute, Ensemble Caprice includes Susan Napper, cello, David Jacques, baroque guitar, and Ziya Tabassian, percussion. The group performs regularly throughout North America and Europe, and has produced more than 20 recordings, most recently Chaconne - Voices of Eternity, described as "a splendid celebration, a baroque party!" (CBC Radio-Canada).

Ensemble Caprice's program opens with J. H. Schmelzer's Serenata con altre arie, before moving on to several short pieces centered on the relationship between Biagio Marini and his beloved Monica. Works by Andrea Faconieri and Carlo Calvi, among others round out this section.

A collection of Czech folk songs presenting "stories of love and solitude" precede additional works by Schmelzer and Falconieri before the concert's intermission. The second half of the program includes J. S. Bach's Chaconne BWV 1004 arranged by Maute, Henry Purcell's Two in one Upon a Ground, Santiago de Murcia's La Jota and Antonio Vivaldi's "La Follia" Sonata, No. 12, op. 1, among other works.

"We want to demonstrate the drama, tenderness, joy, humor and melancholy of the music that makes us all love the Baroque," writes Maute in a program note. For more information about Ensemble Caprice, visit ensemblecaprice.com.