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A European Christmas
![](https://thebachplayers.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/european_christmas.jpg)
Thursday 28 November 2019, 7.30pm
The Octagon Chapel, Colegate, Norwich NR3 1BN
A concert in celebration of Advent and Christmas, starting with music from the Austro-Italian seventeenth-century Catholic tradition; from the Annunciation to the birth of Jesus, with the focus on Mary and the baby Jesus. After the interval: the eighteenth-century Lutheran tradition in Germany with two cantatas by J. S. Bach: ‘Schwingt freudig euch empor’, composed for the first Sunday in Advent, and ‘Selig ist der Mann’, composed for second Christmas day.
![](https://thebachplayers.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/BP_2019_11_norwich_poster.jpg)
The music
Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (1644–1704): The Annunciation, from the Rosary Sonatas
Tarquinio Merula (1595–1665): Canzonetta Spirituale sopra alla nanna
Claudio Merulo (1605–74): Toccata ottava
Giacomo Carissimi (1605–74) ‘Salve salve puellule’
Arcangelo Corelli (1653–1713): Concerto Grosso in G minor, op. 6, no. 8 [‘Christmas concerto’]
J.S. Bach (1685–1750): Cantata for the first Sunday in Advent: ‘Schwingt freudig euch empor’, BWV 36; second part
J.S. Bach: Cantata for the second day of Christmas ‘Selig ist der Mann’, BWV 57
The musicians
![](https://thebachplayers.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/bachplayers_2019_11_28-1.jpg)
Rachel Elliott soprano, Matthew Brook bass, Nicolette Moonen violin and director, Anna Curzon violin, Anne Schumann viola, Olaf Reimers cello, Silas Wollston organ