The Music of Habsburg Empire

“The idea for this album came about some years ago when I attended a performance of Haydn’s Piano Concerto No.11 in D. While reading the programme notes, I was struck by the suggestion that the concerto’s finale, Rondo all’ungarese, despite its title, was thought to be based on a Croatian or Bosnian folk melody. This got me very excited, due to my heritage: I was born in Sarajevo, a small city that is a melting-pot of cultures, nationalities, architecture, arts, history and humour. The region’s culture is incredibly rich and diverse, and I am always keen to celebrate this.” - Ivana Gavric

This recording explores some of the lesser-known music from eighteenth-century Vienna that combines solo voice with virtuoso trombones. During the first half of that century, the city’s musical life experienced an unprecedented blossoming. The Habsburg Emperors aimed to turn Vienna into a truly magnificent capital for the Holy Roman Empire and used visual art, architecture, liturgy, court ceremony and, above all, music to help achieve this.

Fascinated by the multi-cultural substrate, out of which the music in the eastern Habsburg Empire in the 16th and 17th century arose, the ensemble Accentus Austria made vocal and instrumental music of Austria and its neighbouring countries its main concern. To bring to light the manifold treasures of rarely and unknown music and to work out the uniqueness of the style, both the sight into the own art-music and popular music as well as the look across the borders to the West and to the East are necessary.

Naive Classique welcomes newcomers to the Vivaldi Edition: renowned violinist Riccardo Minasi and a new baroque orchestra, Il Pomo d'Oro. "L'Imperatore" is the 46th title in the Vivaldi Edition and the 4th volume, out of approximately 12, of the series dedicated to the violin concertos whose manuscripts are held in the National Library of Turin. All the concertos selected here have been composed for, dedicated to or performed in front of Charles VI (1685-1740), sovereign of the Habsburg Empire, renowned as a patron and passionate lover of music. This series of 7 concertos is an overview of the complete art of Vivaldi as a composer and violinist: large scale of music, invention, expression, energy, power of evocation, considerable virtuosity. Riccardo Minasi is a leading Italian baroque violinist and is also an established conductor.

Gregor Joseph Werner (1693-1766) was Kapellmeister at the Eszterhazy court in Eisenstadt, and on his death he was succeeded by Joseph Haydn. A surviving manuscript score of his oratorio Der gute Hirt (The Good Shepherd) is preserved in the music collection of the National Library of Hungary in Budapest. Werners oratorio is a sepolcro oratorio originating from the Viennese court tradition.

By the early 1620s – when Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla migrated from Cádiz to New Spain (modernday Mexico) in search of new horizons as a music director, composer and instrument-maker – the colony was an important and wealthy outpost of the Habsburg Empire, keen to maintain the religious and musical customs of its mother country. The cathedral of the young, thriving city of Puebla de los Ángeles was still a magnificent work in progress, but its music provision could already rival its European counterparts. Padilla stayed there for forty years, composing prolifically right up to his death in 1664, and had at his disposal a sizeable body of men and boys who not only sang but also played instruments – including guitars, sackbut, dulcian, and simple percussion such as the cajón.