In illo tempore

Capella Mariana will present a programme of vocal music from the "pre-Baroque" period of the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries. At that time, the Habsburgs were the most powerful ruling family in Europe, and Prague became the seat of the imperial court, as well as a prominent centre of science and the arts where the finest music of Italian and Dutch composers could be heard.

Claudio Monteverdi also visited Prague in the service of Vincenzo Gonzaga. His parody mass for six voices "In illo tempore", named after and modelled on a motet by Nicolas Gombert, is the featured composition of the evening’s programme. This contemplative work, published along with the grandiose and innovative Marian Vespers in 1610, illustrates Monteverdi's respect for the "old style" and the Franco-Flemish school, and his perfect command of polyphony. However, other refined music was also written by lesser-known contemporaries and peers of Monteverdi, such as Giovanni Battista Steffanini, as well as composers from the previous generation such as Franz Sales and Gregorio Zucchini.

Visitors to this concert in the Týn Church will be able to enjoy this original programme of Monteverdi's music and appreciate the work of other Italian composers that could have been heard by Emperor Rudolf II himself or by Tycho de Brahe, one of Rudolf’s most famous courtiers who is also buried in the church. The staging of the concert will thus evoke the period when Prague was the political and cultural "heart" of Europe and when music came under the rule of the Italian masters…