Music of the French Counter-Reformation

Very little exists musically from the French Counter-Reformation, largely because of how bloody this period of time was. Musicians were victimized much like the general populace because of the religious disputes. The quantity of surviving music is low, but we believe the quality is high and full of passion!

Our center piece is Eustache du Caurroy’s Missa Pro Defunctis (Mass for the Dead) is particularly poignant when considering the back-drop.  We will open the concert with the starkness of the Calvinist hymns of the day using some of their earliest harmonizations. From there moving to the more complex polyphony of the rebellious Catholic composers.