Composer: Merula, Tarquinio (1595-1665)

A concert at the Andrzej Markowski International Wratislavia Cantans Festival that was anything but traditional or predictable.

Ensemble Correspondances give a virtuoso display of polychoral music from Marc-Antoine Charpentier and his Italian contemporaries.

Though they play Baroque music, the ensemble L’Arpeggiata is more like a jazz band than a traditional orchestra. Anchored by a continuo (rhythm section?) led by artistic director and theorbist Christina Pluhar, they are joined by various other instrumentalists, singers, and even dancers, fitting each of their projects.

If Vienna is the holy temple of classical music (Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Strauss, Bruckner and Mahler all spent large tracts of their careers here), then the Musikverein is its holy of holies. Just soaking in all that history makes a visit here into a special occasion, and the heavily gilt halls are as opulent and redolent of empire as you might imagine.