Capitol Hill Chamber Music Festival in Baltimore

~ Period Instrument chamber music from six centuries ~
~ co-presented by St. Ignatius Church ~

2024: BAROQUE IN TRANSITION

The Capitol Hill Chamber Music Festival returns to Baltimore for the first time since the pandemic with three programs of early chamber music from four centuries performed on period instruments, co-sponsored by St. Ignatius Catholic Church, with performances also in Annapolis and in Washington, DC.

These programs illuminate an evolving 17th century musical perspective in Italy and France and throughout Europe in the context of the music of earlier and later centuries. “Renaissance” and “Baroque” instrumental colors were very much in flux and existed side by side, reflecting an evolving musical taste, with striking contrast as they diverged through French and Italian society with an exchange of ideas between the two. Some instruments such as the transverse flute of the Renaissance were slower to respond to trends in vocal music as their qualities continued to suit the requirements of the instrumental composers of the day, before undergoing a rather drastic evolution physically somewhat later in the 17th century, in response to the new expectations of vocal expression.