Baroque Week. Patron: Trevor Pinnock CBE Artistic Director: Theresa Caudle

Welcome from the Artistic Director


Welcome to Baroque Week 2025!


One of the many good things about being the artistic leader of Baroque Week is that it forces me to broaden my knowledge, both historical and musical, and to search for interesting and new (to me) repertoire. Writing in early November, there is a long way to go before deciding on every individual piece we can include in the 2025 course but I am getting more and more excited about the broad range of repertoire we can explore, which should hold something for everyone.


“Visiting Vienna: Exploring European Music at the Habsburg Court” is the title for our 2025 theme. Vienna, as the capital of the Habsburg Empire, was a central hub for the arts and a melting pot of different musical styles during the 17th century, with influences from Italy, France and Germany that led to the development of a distinct Viennese style which blended Italian expressiveness with Germanic and French structures and forms. A long line of Emperors who were passionate about music created the largest Hofkapelle in Europe and composers, instrumentalists and singers – especially from Italy - were enticed to the Habsburg court by the possibility of regular employment, generous remuneration and abundant opportunities for performance. Coronations, marriages and even birthdays were celebrated by the performance of a new opera or Mass, often on an unprecedentedly large and sumptuous scale. There was also ample scope for the composition and performance of smaller-scale vocal music – the Italian cantata form was very popular – as well as purely instrumental music.

In case you wish to do some delving yourselves, I am compiling a list of composers with connections to the Viennese court that you might find useful - you can download the current version from the Library page.  But meanwhile, here are some of the composers whose music is likely to be included in the planned sessions and added to the BW library................  Italians Bertali, Sances, Cesti, Monteverdi (who, although he never visited Vienna, dedicated both his Eighth Book of Madrigals and his collection of Selve Morale e Spirituale to the Habsburgs), Vitali, Valentini, Draghi, Bononcini  and Caldara; native Austrians Schmelzer, Fux and Wagenseil; and, towards the end of our period, the German composers Hasse and Glück.


As usual, we will be making sure that there is plenty of interesting 17th century material on offer for recorders, theorbos and vocal ensembles, as well as later repertoire to cater for our flautists in particular – already Clare has been exploring interesting pieces by Wagenseil and Hasse. We will be adding new music to the library in the months to come so keep a look-out for new material by clicking the Library tab and following the links. And if you have any specific ideas for pieces you’d like us to include, please do let us know!


Thank you to all of you who contributed such useful and positive feedback from the 2024 course; we’re very gratified by all your comments and I’m especially pleased that those of you who came for the first time seem to have been particularly satisfied – it looks like we’re succeeding in our efforts to make things ever easier for new people to fit in.  There were very few criticisms but we have taken these on board and are working on making the course run even more smoothly. In particular we will be offering more help to singers to choose repertoire and get players together for their own-choice sessions, and to ensure that the requisite scores and parts are provided and prepared for the instrumentalists.


It was wonderful to have my brother Mark with us for the 2024 course but I’m very pleased that Jacob Garside is able to rejoin us after taking a year off because of playing commitments, and that all our other superb tutors from 2024 will be returning. The feedback about our new tutors Rob and Dan was overwhelmingly positive and I felt they were fantastic replacements for Steven and Kate. I feel very lucky to have been able to assemble a team of such amazing musicians once again.


Thank you so much to everyone who made donations on top of your basic fee for last year’s course – please do so again if you possibly can. Your help enables us to continue to award bursaries to student and young emerging professional musicians who add so much to the course, as well as helping more mature people who would not otherwise be in a position to come. And this year we also hope that increased funding will put us in a position to hire in more full-sized good harpsichords.


Do book early to avoid disappointment as we are very optimistic that we will be fully booked again, and please have a look at the Bursaries page if you might need financial assistance in order to attend.


I look forward to seeing you next August!



Theresa