ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
PHILIPPE HERREWEGHE
Michael PRAETORIUS (1571-1621):
*Motets from Musae Sioniae* (1605/1607)
*Danses from Terpsichore* (1612)
*Collegium Vocale Gent*
Capriccio Stravagante Renaissance Orchestra
Skip Sempé
Like Heinrich Schütz, Michael Praetorius was a pivotal figure in the transition from the 16th-century stile antico to the baroque. Inspired by the Venetian polychoral music of Gabrieli, he published 17 volumes of music between 1605 and 1613, as Kapellmeister to Duke Heinrich Julius of Wolfenbüttel. The largest of these was the nine-part _Musae Sioniae_ for 2 to 16 voices. Besides interweaving vocal and instrumental lines in spectacular fashion, Praetorius larded his motets with familiar Lutheran chorale tunes, a technique that would be perfected a century on by J. S. Bach in his cantatas.