To Schein or not to Schein

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Contrafacta and acoustic illusions

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Sunday, 7 November 2027, 19:00

Kartäuserkirche, Basel

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Programme

Motets, psalms and instrumental music by Johann Hermann Schein (1586–1630; selections from Israelsbrünnlein and Musica boschareccia), Heinrich Schütz (1585–1672), Hans Leo Hassler (1564–1612) and Giovanni Gabrieli (1557–1612).

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Musicians

Anne Simone Aeberhard (recorders) – Mojca Gal (violin) – Bruno Hurtado Gosalvez (cello) – Thys Grobelnik (harpsichord) – Julian Schmidlin (alto) – Achim Glatz (tenor) – Sebastian Mattmüller (bass) – Stefan Beltinger (organ)

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Music can deceive – or rather, it can transform. A familiar melody takes on a different meaning through new words, the same composition appears in both secular and sacred guise, and what sounds unchanged suddenly tells an entirely different story.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, such transformations were an integral part of everyday musical life. Popular songs were given new texts, secular melodies found their way into sacred collections – and the boundaries between these two worlds were often far more fluid than we might imagine today.