Musica Transalpina https://musicatransalpina.org/ LA's newest baroque ensemble. Tue, 31 Mar 2026 20:18:31 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://musicatransalpina.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/cropped-240px-Mensural_c_clef_06.svg_-32x32.png Musica Transalpina https://musicatransalpina.org/ 32 32 La Morte del Cor penitente – Celebrating four centuries of Legrenzi https://musicatransalpina.org/2026/03/04/legrenzi/ Wed, 04 Mar 2026 12:00:14 +0000 https://musicatransalpina.org/?p=816 Join Musica Transalpina for the American première of Legrenzi's oratorio "La Morte del Cor penitente", recently transcribed from a manuscript copy from 1705.

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La Confessione (1838) by Giuseppe Molteni.  Cariplo Collection, Gallerie di Piazza Scala, Milan.

Saturday March 14, 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 March 15, 2026 at 4 P. M.

St. Mark Church
2200 San Joaquin Hills Road
Newport Beach CA 92660

La Morte del Cor penitente is one of three surviving oratorios by Giovanni Legrenzi, composed around the Year 1671 when he was the leading opera composer in Venice. This remarkable oratorio tells the story of a tormented Sinner, who must choose between saving his life or saving his soul. Ultimately, allegories of Repentance and Hope gently persuade him that in order to truly live, he must embrace death.

 
Musica Transalpina is proud to present the first American performance of this obscure work to commemorate four centuries since this important composer’s birth, using an edition––copied directly from the sole surviving manuscript––prepared especially for our Ensemble.
Select tickets HERE

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]]> Echoes of Venice – Musical Treasures from the Graz Court https://musicatransalpina.org/2026/03/03/graz/ Tue, 03 Mar 2026 00:54:46 +0000 https://musicatransalpina.org/?p=871 The post Echoes of Venice – Musical Treasures from the Graz Court appeared first on Musica Transalpina.

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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.

Graz was the capital of Inner Austria, which was governed by a cadet branch of the Habsburg family.  When the famously incompetent Emperor Matthias died in 1619, he was succeeded by his cousin, Archduke Ferdinand of Styria, who moved his personal retinue to Vienna upon his election as the next Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand II.

 

Emperor Ferdinand II.’s father, Archduke Charles II. of Styria, had made Graz a center for Italian art & culture in his zealous efforts to implement the Counterreformation north of the Alps.  The Graz court was, therefore, the entry point which brought the baroque to Austria, and, from there, throughout rest of Europe.

 
In 2026, Musica Transalpina commemorates four centuries since the death of Giovanni Priuli, who was Emperor Ferdinand II.’s cherished chapel master.  Priuli was one of the most prominent composers to first import baroque musical influences from Venice while working at the Graz court. We are presenting impressive passages from the Graz chorbuch written for four choirs which have never been heard in modern times, and several enormous motets in up to twelve parts from Priuli’s nearly impossible to access Sacrorum Concentuum … pars altera, which was published in 1619: the same year that Emperor Ferdinand moved his court to Vienna –– a process which lasted the Graz court musicians well into 1620.

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]]> Le Concert Spirituel – Grands Motets from Versailles https://musicatransalpina.org/2026/03/02/versailles/ Mon, 02 Mar 2026 23:34:34 +0000 https://musicatransalpina.org/?p=885 Join Musica Transalpina as we explore the opulence of the French court, whose grandiose liturgical compositions formed the basis of the first ever public concert series, "Le Concert Spirituel".

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Louis XIV. consecrates his crown & sceptre to the Mother of God by Philippe de Champaigne (1643), courtesy of the Hamburger Kunsthalle.

Saturday October 10, 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 October 11, 2026 at 4 P. M.

St. Mark Church
2200 San Joaquin Hills Road
Newport Beach CA 92660

Sacred music during the Age of Absolutism played an indispensable rôle in helping a ruler convey an image of piety, prestige, and power.  While the Holy Roman Empire was busy combatting heresy with resplendent polychoral music in a highly Italianate style, the French court––beginning with Louis XIII. and continuing with even greater splendor during the reign of Louis XIV.––promoted highly idiosyncratic liturgical music that had less to do with Romanitas and more to do with reinforcing the idea that France, as “Eldest Daughter of the Church”, was unique among Christian nations and therefore deserving of a distinctly Gallican musical style.

The liturgical sensibilities of seventeenth-century France were notoriously lax, with a preference for grands motets performed during low masses & paraliturgies like Benediction, as opposed to settings of the mass ordinary intended for high mass, which were preferred by the Austrian court.  Eventually (and sometimes controversially), these opulent sacred compositions made their way into secular spaces, in particular with the first public concert series in history, Le Concert Spirituel, which consisted of sacred music produced during the season of Lent, when secular forms of musical entertainment like opera were forbidden.

Musica Transalpina pays homage to the opulent sacred music of the French court which formed the basis of this first public concert series, featuring large-scale compositions by Campra, Delalande, and other composers which could have been heard during low mass at the chapel royal in Versailles, or at a concert in the Salle des Cent Suisses in the Tuileries.

Select tickets HERE

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]]> Robed in Splendor – Mourning at the Hofkapelle https://musicatransalpina.org/2026/03/01/straus/ Sun, 01 Mar 2026 02:49:11 +0000 https://musicatransalpina.org/?p=896 Join Musica Transalpina as we present the first known performance of the magnificent Missa pro Defunctis by Christoph Straus, composed for two choirs in October of 1621.

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Posthumous portrait of Emperor Matthias painted by Hans von Aachen in 1625, housed in the rijksmuseum of Amsterdam.

Saturday November 14, 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 November 15, 2026 at 4 P.M.

Orange County

Venue will be announced soon.

Musica Transalpina is proud to present the first known modern performance of an extraordinary Requiem mass composed by Christoph Straus in October of 1621. Straus was chapel master to the notoriously incompetent Emperor Matthias, who showed a preference for the baroque musical styles emerging in Italy, and Christoph Straus was among the first to compose music for the Habsburg court in the elaborate new concertato style.  When Emperor Matthias died in 1619, Straus was replaced by the much more fashionable Italian composers that the new emperor, Ferdinand II., brought with him from his home in Graz, whose court far outshone Vienna in splendor.  Straus was retained in a bureaucratic capacity in the Imperial household, so it is most likely––considering the month that this Requiem setting was composed––that it was intended for the All Souls’ Day observances held at the chapel royal on November 2, 1621.   

This Requiem mass is extraordinary for specifying distinctions between vocal & instrumental passages within each of the parts, which is remarkable considering the early date of its composition.  It is composed in ten independent parts divided across two choirs, with voices alternating with instruments in order to create primitive obbligato passages, effectively doubling the scope of this work to twenty parts.  Christoph Straus became chapel master at S. Stephen’s Cathedral in 1626, and died in 1631, the year that this setting was published by Christoph’s son, Matthias Straus. 

Select tickets HERE

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]]> Palestrina crosses the Alps https://musicatransalpina.org/2025/09/09/500/ Tue, 09 Sep 2025 00:09:41 +0000 https://musicatransalpina.org/?p=774 The post Palestrina crosses the Alps appeared first on Musica Transalpina.

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Italia und Germaina by Friedrich Overbech, symbolizing the 19th-century German fascination with all things Italian and –– by extension –– Catholic.

Concert
Sunday September 14, 2025 at 2 P. M.

Santa Monica Bay Woman’s Club
1210 Fourth Street
Santa Monica, CA 90401

The Year 2025 marks 500 years since the birth of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, who is considered the first truly great composer.  Unlike Bach, Palestrina’s works have been performed consistently ever since he was alive.  Palestrina worked closely with the popes in Rome, and the implementation of his musical reforms changed the course of music history forever. 

Humanists during the Renaissance perceived several flaws in the way that music was composed during the sixteenth century (for instance, long melismatic passages on weak syllables, as well musical phrases that seemingly failed to adequately emphasize the rhetorical imagery of the words), which were corrected by Palestrina and his contemporaries, laying the foundation for the Baroque.  Palestrina’s style would reach legendary status during the seventeenth century, and it has been performed continuously over the past 450 years, inspiring countless revival movements ever since. 

To reflect Palestrina’s timeless legacy, we have programmed compositions that illustrate how the concept of Palestrina’s music evolved over the centuries: we begin with late 16th- and early 17th-century adaptations of Palestrina’s works for solo voice in a nascent baroque idiom, followed by compositions from the 18th & 19th centuries by German composers directly imitating Palestrina’s style, including a transcription of a Palestrina mass arranged by Bach himself.

Program

Palestrina – Dum complerentur (pub. 1569; organ part added circa 1585.)

Palestrina – Pater noster (1575)
Intabulation of the Pater Noster by Paix, pub. 1583.

Palestrina – Ave Maria (1563)
Divisions upon Ave Maria by Bassano, 1591.

Palestrina – Pulchra es (1584)
Divisions upon Pulchra es by Rognoni, 1621.

Lotti – Crucifixus from the Credo in F Major (c. 1717)

Fux (died 1741) – Beati omnes (pub. 1859)

Intermission

Frescobaldi – Capriccio sopra Vestiva i colli di Palestrina (c. 1643)

Palestrina – Missa sine nomine (1591) transcribed by J. S. Bach (c. 1742)

Palestrina – Offertorium in Dominca XIII. post Pentecosten (1593.)

 Mendelssohn – Im Advent, No. 5 from Sechs Sprüche, Op. 79 (1846)

Bruckner – Os Justi  (1879)

Personnel

Graycen Gardener, soprano primo
Dr. Alexander Bonus, cornetto primo

Anna Schubert, soprano secondo
Dr. Carlo Benedetti, cornetto secondo

William Duffy & Nathaniel Decker, alto
Brad Close, alto sackbut

Dr. R. Matthew Brown, tenore primo
Nick Daley, tenor sackbut

Luc Kleiner, tenore secondo
Eric Schmalz, tenor sackbut

John Buffett, basso
Noah Gladstone, bass sackbut

Continuo:

Gabriel Golden, violone
Cono “Richard” Savino, theorbo
Sean Maxwell, organo

Bryan Roach, maestro di capella

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]]> Our Lady’s Dowry: Marian Music from Tudor England https://musicatransalpina.org/2025/07/05/tudor/ Sat, 05 Jul 2025 16:52:45 +0000 https://musicatransalpina.org/?p=754 The post Our Lady’s Dowry: Marian Music from Tudor England appeared first on Musica Transalpina.

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A rich artistic culture flourished in Mediæval England, which was marked by an intense piety that belied the political instability of the age.  English music was renowned on the Continent for its refinement & characteristic ‘sweetness’.
 
Lady Margaret Beaufort – mother of Henry VII. and grandmother of Henry VIII. – was instrumental in securing the crown for the Tudor dynasty at the conclusion of the Wars of the Roses.  Despite her political manœuverings, she was famous for her religious devotion and was an important patroness of the arts.
 

On Saturday August 23 and Sunday August 24, Musica Transalpina presents a program of music from early Tudor England, featuring the Missa O bone Jhesu by Robert Fayrfax, which was commissioned by Lady Margaret.  This mass survives in three choirbooks compiled around 1515, 1520, and 1525, but this mass setting would have to predate Lady Margaret’s death in 1509.  A closer look at her treasurer’s payment records indicate that she paid Fayrfax 6 shillings and 8 pence for a new mass on August 11, 1507, positively dating this composition to that year.

Join Musica Transalpina as we present works from before the English Reformation on Saturday August 23 and Sunday August 24, 2025.

Saturday August 23, 2025 at 7.30 P. M.

Sierra Madre Playhouse
87 W Sierra Madre Blvd,
Sierra Madre, CA 91024

Sunday, August 24, 2025 at 2 P. M.

St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church
2200 San Joaquin Hills Road
Newport Beach, CA 92660

Purchase tickets for Saturday here
Purchase tickets for Sunday here

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]]> Musical Patronage at Imperial Abbeys https://musicatransalpina.org/2025/07/03/monastic/ Thu, 03 Jul 2025 02:45:38 +0000 https://musicatransalpina.org/?p=736 The post Musical Patronage at Imperial Abbeys appeared first on Musica Transalpina.

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The music archive at Kremsmünster Abbey, one of the most valuable collections of baroque sacred music in the world.

Musica Transalpina is thrilled to present a program of sacred music from monastic sources on Saturday July 12 in Pasadena and Sunday July 13 in Newport Beach.

While royal courts were the first to import baroque liturgical music from Italy, it was the vast network of religious orders that disseminated this magnificent repertoire north of the Alps following the Council of Trent.  The imperial abbey system not only helped spread the latest musical styles, they acquired copies of the music being composed for the Hofkapelle, thus preserving these works which would have otherwise been lost forever.  
 
The music from these monastic sources is of incalculable historical value, but almost none of it has been heard in the United States.  Musica Transalpina is proud to present the American concert première of almost every work on this program, which we have sourced out of monastic archives and are bringing to life for two concerts only: Saturday July 12 at 7:30 P. M. in Pasadena and Sunday July 13 at 4 P. M. in Newport Beach.

Program

Blasius Ammon, O. F. M.: Introit for a Confessor Pontiff: Statuit ei.  

Published at Vienna in 1582; also found in a choirbook belonging to the Cappuchin Monastery at Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz copied in 1597.

Joseph Balthasar Hochreither: Missa Jubilus sacer

Composed in 1731, presumably for Lambach Abbey

Romanus Weichlein, O. S. B.: Sonata prima from Encænia Musices

Published at Innsbruck in 1695.

Mathias Sigismund Biechteler: Justus ut palma

Manuscript from Salzburg Cathedral circa 1737.

Gregor Aichinger: Ecce sacerdos magnus

Quercus dudonæa, Augsburg: 1609.

Adalbert Grunde, O. S. B.: Ingredemini omnes 
Manuscript from Kremsmünster Abbey dated 1637.

Personnel

Clarino primo: Dr. Kris Kwapis

Clarino secondo: Cody Beard

Tromba 1: Mike Davis
Tromba 2: Dr. Angela Romero

Timpani: Jamie Strowhiro

Trombone 1: Spencer Schaffer

Trombone 2: Brad Close

Trombone 3: Noah Gladstone

Violino 1: Jolianne Einem

Violino 2: Anna Washburn

Violoncello: Eric Tinkerhess

Canto: Andrea Zomorodian & Maura Tuffy

Alto: Doug Dodson & Anselm Decker
Tenore: Dr. R. Matthew Brown & Luc Kleiner

Basso: Chung Uk Lee & Brett McDermid

Organo: Sean Maxwell

Fagotto: Dr. Jonathan Stehney
Violone: Gabriel Golden
Chitarrone: Robert Wang

Arpa tripla: Mana Tinkerhess

Maestro di capella: Bryan Roach

This program is offered in loving memory of Dr. Burton L. Karson.

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]]> Palestrina Forever: Celebrating 500 Years of Timeless Music https://musicatransalpina.org/2025/05/31/palestrina/ Sat, 31 May 2025 18:38:26 +0000 https://musicatransalpina.org/?p=712 Join us on Sunday June 15, 2025 as we explore the timelessness of Palestrina's music and how it inspired countless generations of composers ever since!

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Free liturgical performance
Sunday June 15, 2025 at 1 P. M.

St. Thérèse of Lisieux parish
1100 E Alhambra Road
Alhambra, CA 91801

Program

Frescobaldi – Capriccio sopra Vestiva i colli di Palestrina

Palestrina, arr. Bassano – Benedicta sit Sancta Trinitas

Bruckner – Asperges me No. 1

Palestrina – Missa Nasce la gioja mia à 6.

Palestrina – Offertorium Benedictus sit Deus

Palestrina – Offertorium In te speravi

Palestrina (attr.) – Ricercar secondo tuono

Zielenski – Communio Benedícimus Deum cæli

Fux – Psalm cxxvij. Beati omnes

Palestrina, arr. Rognoni – Pulchra es

Palestrina – O Beata & gloriosa Trinitas, intabulated for organ by Jakob Paix

Personnel

MaryRuth Miller & Anselm Decker, cantus
Dr. Kiri Tollaksen, cornetto

Hannah Little & Nathaniel Decker, cantus secundus
Carrie Holzman Little, viola da braccio

Dr. Matthew Tresler, altus
Spencer Schaffer, tenor sackbut

Dr. Jon Lee Keenan, tenor secundus
Noah Gladstone, tenor sackbut

Gregory Billion, tenor
Brad Close, tenor sackbut

Scott Graff, bassus
Dr. Jonthan Stehney, dulcian

Alejandro Acosta, archlute
Matthew Xie, theorbo

Sean Maxwell, organ

Bryan Roach, director

The Year 2025 marks 500 years since the birth of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, who is arguably the single most influential composer of all time.  Palestrina worked closely with the popes in Rome, and almost singlehandedly determined the sound of Catholicism.  The implementation of his musical reforms changed the course of music history forever.

Humanists during the Renaissance perceived several flaws in the way that music was composed during the sixteenth century (for instance, long melismatic passages on weak syllables, as well musical phrases that seemingly failed to adequately emphasize the rhetorical imagery of the words), which were corrected by Palestrina and his contemporaries, laying the foundation for the Baroque.  Palestrina’s style would reach legendary status during the baroque era, and it has been performed continuously over the past 450 years, inspiring countless revival movements ever since. 

To reflect the timelessness of Palestrina’s music, we have included 17th-century arrangements of Palestrina’s works for solo voice in a baroque idiom, as well as later compositions from the 18th and 19th centuries directly inspired by Palestrina’s style: all this in addition to featuring Palestrina’s immortal compositions performed in the manner that they would have been encountered during the 16th century.

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]]> Eternal Majesty: Requiem for an Empress https://musicatransalpina.org/2025/03/07/requiem/ Fri, 07 Mar 2025 07:27:39 +0000 https://musicatransalpina.org/?p=686 The post Eternal Majesty: Requiem for an Empress appeared first on Musica Transalpina.

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Musica Transalpina is proud to present the first known American performance of Emperor Leopold’s Missa pro defunctis, which he composed for the death of the Empress Margaret Theresa in 1673.  The marriage between the Infanta Margaret Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I. was one of the most important dynastic alliances in history, so her untimely death was of immense historical significance, ultimately leading to the extinction of the Spanish branch of the House of Habsburg.  It was also personally devastating to the Emperor.  We are recreating the music that accompanied this historic event, and now you get to hear it.

 
Join us for this and other moving compositions by Habsburg court composers for two performances:

Free liturgical performance:

Thursday April 3, 2025 at 7 P. M.

Ss. Peter & Paul
515 West Opp Street
Wilmington, CA 90744

Tickets are not required for Thursday’s performance.

Concert performance:

Sunday April 6, 2025 at 7:30 PM

The Parish Church of St. Andrew
311 North Raymond Avenue
Pasadena, CA 91103

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]]> A Mass for Peace https://musicatransalpina.org/2024/11/30/peace/ Sat, 30 Nov 2024 22:38:19 +0000 https://musicatransalpina.org/?p=660 The post A Mass for Peace appeared first on Musica Transalpina.

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In a rapidly modernizing world marked by conflict, Jacobus de Kerle masterfully weaves the ethereal votive antiphon Da pacem, Domine into a magnificent cantus firmus mass as a cry for peace. Possibly written as a commemoration of the epic sea victory at Lepanto in 1571, this work was lavishly published in 1583 by the legendary press of Christophe Plantin, the most prestigious publishing house in history.

We are proud to present first complete performance of this glorious Mass setting in modern times, sung for the first time in America. We hope that you will find its soaring melodies & noble harmonic language a moving call to peace in your own heart.

Concert performance

Saturday November 30, 2024 at 7 P. M.
The parish church of S. Andrew
311 North Raymond Avenue
Pasadena, CA 91103.

Free liturgical performance

Sunday December 1, 2024 at 9 A. M.
The parish church of Ss. Peter & Paul
515 West Opp Street
Wilmington, CA 90744.

Tickets for Saturday’s concert may be obtained at the following link:

PeaceinOurTime.Eventbrite.com

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