Christmas in Baroque Salzburg

Heinrich BiberMissa Sancti Henrici
Various composersChristmas carols, sonatas and motets
  • Claire Coleman soprano
  • SVF Childrens’ Choir
  • Essex Baroque Orchestra
  • directed by Peter Holman

A concert to transport you to the splendour of Baroque Salzburg around 1700, when the great violinist and composer Heinrich Biber was Kapellmeister to the court. Biber’s festive Missa Sancti Henrici, scored for soloists, choir, trumpets and drums and strings, was his swansong. We intersperse its movements with Christmas carols, sonatas and motets by Biber and his contemporaries, as would have been done at the time. As usual we are joined by a choir of local schoolchildren, trained by Tom Stapleton.