Christmas to feel good

This concert is a journey to a place where people wish each other Buon Natale on Christmas Eve and are served a large slice of panettone after the festive meal. Italy has preserved a particularly large number of Christmas traditions that inspired composers such as Antonio Vivaldi and Archangelo Corelli. The Hamburg ensemble Schirokko – specializing in historically informed performance practice and named after the Mediterranean desert wind – brings these Christmas highlights across the Alps and to the Elbphilharmonie.

Archangelo Corelli’s famous »Concerto grosso for Christmas Eve« has been as much a part of Italian Christmas Eve for more than three centuries as the nativity scene with the baby Jesus. Antonio Vivaldi’s »Sonata per il Santo Natale« gazes tenderly upon this newborn Bambino Gesù. In addition, the Schirokko ensemble presents real discoveries: »L’Hyver« from Giovanni Antonio Guido’s »Quattro Stagioni« paints a musical fresco of winter, while in Francesco Manfredini’s »Pastorale per il sanstissimo natale« the shepherds in the fields follow the star towards Bethlehem. The baroque concerti by Francesco Geminiani and Guiseppe Torelli sound as bright and shining as this Christmas star.

PERFORMERS

Ensemble Schirokko Hamburg ensemble

Rachel Harris violin and director

PROGRAM

Giovanni Antonio Guido
L’Hyver

Giuseppe Torelli
Concerto grosso g-Moll op. 8/6

Antonio Vivaldi
Concerto für zwei Violoncelli, Streicher und Basso continuo g-Moll RV 531

Francesco Geminiani
Concerto Grosso in D minor, »La Follia«

- Interval -

Francesco Onofrio Manfredini
Concerto grosso C-Dur op. 3/12 »Pastorale per il Santissimo Natale«

Antonio Vivaldi
Concerto E-Dur RV 270 »Per il Santo Natale«

Arcangelo Corelli
Concerto grosso in G minor, Op. 6/8 »Fatto per la Notte di Natale«