Feliz Navidad - baroque Christmas music

Our Christmas project builds a musical bridge from the Spanish Renaissance to the Italian Baroque. The Catalan master Mateu Fletxa el Vell was best known for his ensaladas. In this musical genre - ensalada in German really means salad in the sense of a motley mishmash - a wide variety of influences and styles come together. Often these vocal pieces, mostly for four voices, take up popular melodies from folk tradition, mixing several languages and setting styles - homophony and polyphony. However, the two Christmas ensaladas by Fletxa entitled El Fuego and La Bomba are only one, albeit very important, focus of the programme. The two Christmas cantatas La Pastorale and La Tarantella by the composer Cristoforo Caresana, who was active in Naples, transport us to another, not so distant musical world. As is well known, the Kingdom of Naples was under Spanish rule for a long time. Can you hear the Iberian influence on this charming Christmas music? See for yourself when an exquisite vocal and instrumental ensemble spreads a sensual Mediterranean Christmas atmosphere. When Arcangelo Corelli and Johann Heinrich Schmelzer unfold pastoral sounds in their sonatas, you too will get into the true Christmas spirit - away from the hustle and bustle of commercialism.