The December playing session will be devoted to sacred and secular music of the Christmas Season.
We’ll start with a Bach chorale from the Christmas Oratorio and will follow that with motets of Hans Leo Hassler and William Byrd, both of whom composed sacred music in hostile religious environments. Hassler, a Protestant, worked mostly in the Catholic areas of Germany, and his contemporary, the Roman Catholic William Byrd, composed in England at a time when many Catholic composers found it necessary to leave for Europe.
We’ll then turn to four medieval carol tunes arranged in this century by Peter Seibert. To close the evening, we’ll play an arrangement of Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, a melody from the early 1940s.
You’ll find the music and the link to join by Zoom on our Music Page.