The Australian period ensemble brings its expertise to Baroque, Classical and Romantic repertoire.

With audience favourites and some rarities, Ironwood’s newly announced 2017 season is devoted to three centuries of chamber music. In its tenth year of performance, the Australian period ensemble continues its keen exploration of repertoire from the Renaissance to late-Romantic era over four exciting programmes.

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Kicking off proceedings, Season 1 investigates music from the stylus fantasticus era of seventeenth-century Europe. Entitled The Poetic and the Fantastic, the programme surveys the richly imaginative works of Schmelzer, Biber and Becker. Schmelzer, the composer associated for much of his career with the Hapsburg court in Vienna, developed a string technique that influenced later European masters like Biber and Bach. The ensemble performs Schmelzer’s Sacro-profanus concentus musicus, and the famous homage composed after the death of the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdininad III, the Lamento sopra il morte Ferdinandi III. Biber’s Balletti provides insight into the imagination of a most innovative composer, while Becker’s Sonata No 3 and Pavan are rare treats, among the most rich and inventive of...