There's something special about hearing baroque music in beautiful, palatial surroundings of the kind for which it was composed. And the surroundings don't get much more beautiful or palatial than Rundāle Palace, an 80 km drive from downtown Riga, built between 1736 and 1768 as the summer residence of the Dukes of Courland, on the borders of Russia and designed by the same architect as the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. Saturday July 8th at Rundāle is filled with baroque concerts to conclude the Latvian Early Music Festival. Things kick off at 1pm with a chidren's concert based on Spanish fairy tales and concerts follow every two hours from 4pm.
First up is Milan-based company Le Coin du Roi and their director Christian Frattima, who dedicate themselves to restoring "the social value that opera had in the 18th century": their young founders feel that Italy risks losing its own operatic heritage and set themselves on a mission to restore it. As well as the 4pm concert at Rundāle, which comprises music by Monteverdi, Handel and Vivaldi, they will appear at two events in Riga: the festival's opening concert on July 6th in the Small Guild Hall and a performance of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas on July 7th at St Peter's Church.
An Italian ensemble with a French name is followed at 6pm by a French-speaking ensemble with an Italian name: Luxembourg's Artemandoline are dedicated to researching and reviving the fortunes of music of the mandolin family. The 8pm slot belongs to Collegium musicum Rīga performing music from the French Baroque, and the day concludes with the traditional concert in the gardens, with Sinfonietta Rīga playing The Four Seasons and other baroque works.
All the Baltic republics have strong choral traditions, both in composition and performance. Latvia is no exception, with their most celebrated contemporary composer being Pēteris Vasks, whose works are interleaved with those of Johann Sebastian Bach in what promises to be an exceptional Good Friday concert in Riga Cathedral on April 14th, featuring Sinfonietta Rīga with the Latvian Radio Choir. There are plenty more opportunities to hear the Latvian Radio Choir in the year, from Gregorian Chants in a late night concert during the Early Music Festival to a Carmina Burana (coupled with the Poulenc Organ Concerto) on Jun 21st at the Russian Tsars' summer retreat of Jūrmala, on the shores of the Baltic just west of Riga.
June 16th gives the chance to hear the work of Ēriks Ešenvalds, another highly rated Latvian choral composer whose music has frequently impressed our reviewers, or in June, you can opt for the Jubilee Concert for Uģis Prauliņš, whose career has spanned folk and prog-rock as well as classical.