Le Consort will guide their instruments in singing praise of the sonata form with the program “From Naples to London.” The chamber ensemble’s debut Penn State concert will be at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 22, in Recital Hall.
The artists of Le Consort approach the violin trio sonata genre with youthful energy, a fresh ear and the excitement in discovery of a new favorite band. A performance by Le Consort is like a journey through England and Europe, examining the various styles of violin trio sonatas.
Tickets — $48 for adults; $10 for University Park students, and $15 for individuals 18 and younger — are available for purchase online, by calling 814-863-0255 or in person from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. weekdays at Eisenhower Auditorium. A $4 fee is applied to online purchases only.
Prior to the Recital Hall performance, Le Consort will deliver an intimate mini-concert as part of the Classical Coffeehouse at 8 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 21, in Robb Hall of the Hintz Family Alumni Center. The event will feature excerpts from the ensemble’s repertoire as well as a conversation with attendees. Attendance is free for Penn State University Park and high school students, and a $15 donation is suggested for non-students.
The myth is that the sonata form is a dead genre. The raison d’être for Le Consort is to raise awareness of the vibrancy in the music, regardless of its age and place in pop culture, and to create a mental picture of the music and the context of the time.
“It’s really a music that is so much alive and so much closer to our different emotions and so much connected to us as human beings,” Le Consort cellist Hanna Salzenstein said in a recent artist conversation with the Center for the Performing Arts team.
“It’s very modern,” Salzenstein said. “We always like to introduce the pieces we are playing. … They are travelling in the time in a musical context. And we are trying to paint and to tell this story about Europe in the beginning of 18th century, and how musicians … traveled and how all the different aesthetics just mixed up.”
The “From Naples to London” program includes:
- John Eccles’ “The Mad Lover”
- Nicola Matteis’ “Sarabanda Amorosa—Preludio in C sol faut—Andamento—Bore—Diverse bizarrie sopra la vecchia o pur sarabanda”
- Antonio Vivaldi, Sonata Op. 1, No. 1, in G minor
- Arcangelo Corelli, Violin Sonata, Op. 5, No. 12, “Folia”
- Francesco Maria Veracini’s Violin Sonata in A Major, Op. 1, No. 7
- Henry Purcell’s Ground for Harpsichord, “Here the Deities” Sonata of Four Parts in F minor, Z. 807
- Mrs. Philarmonica, Sonata Sesta in G Major
- Johann Sebastian Bach, Larghetto BWV 972
- Vivaldi, “La Follia,” Op. 1, No. 12
