The imperial Mausoleum attached to the former court chapel at Graz, which has since been elevated to the status of a cathedral.
Saturday May 2, 2026 at 7.30 P. M.
The Parish Church of St. Andrew
311 North Raymond Avenue
Pasadena CA 91103
Free parking in the lot diagonally across from St. Andrew’s.
Sunday May 3, 2026 at 4 P. M.
St. Mark Church
2200 San Joaquin Hills Road
Newport Beach CA 92660
Graz was the home of a cadet branch of the House of Habsburg which governed Inner Austria. Archduke Charles II. made Graz a bastion for the Counterreformation, and immersed the Graz court with Italian sacred art & music. When the famously incompetent Emperor Matthias died childless in 1619, he was succeeded by Archduke Ferdinand, the son of Archduke Charles II. Emperor Ferdinand II. effectively made the baroque sacred music he grew up with the “sound” of the Habsburg Counterreformation, and, when he moved the imperial Court to Vienna in 1619, his cadre of Italian court musicians (including Giovanni Priuli, Giovanni Felice Sances, Antonio Bertali, and others) helped him wield the resplendent Venetian musical style as a political tool to convey an aura of power & majesty during this period of religious & political turmoil.
In 2026, Musica Transalpina commemorates four centuries since the death of Giovanni Priuli, who was one of the most prominent composers to first bring baroque musical influences north of the Alps. We are presenting never-before-heard passages extracted from the Graz chorbuch written for four choirs around the year 1610, and several enormous motets in up to twelve parts from the nearly impossible to access Sacrorum Concentuum … pars altera by Giovanni Priuli, which was published in 1619 –– the same year that Emperor Ferdinand moved the imperial court to Vienna, a process which lasted the court musicians well into 1620.