One hundred years before Mozart and Beethoven, Vienna’s music scene was already on fire with stylus phantasticus, a genre combining Italian drama and Northern European formal complexity. ACRONYM, an “outstanding young early-music string ensemble” (The New Yorker), presents a feast of musical delights in the band’s Baltimore debut. ACRONYM’s 11 members perform on strings, violas da gamba, theorbo, and keyboards, bringing “gutsy, fresh explorations” (Early Music America) to these rare treasures.

PROGRAM:

Giovanni Valentini - Sonata a5 in C major

Giovanni Valentini - Sonata a5 in G minor

Antonio Bertali - Sonata a5 in G minor

Giovanni Valentini - Sonata a5 in A minor

Antonio Bertali - Sonata a6 in E minor

Georg Piscator - Sonata a7 in A minor

Adam Drese - Sonata a6 in C major

Johann Heinrich Schmelzer - Sonata a5 in G minor

Marc'Antonio Ziani - Sonata

Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber - The Battle of Vienna in G minor (arr. A.A. Schmelzer)

Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber - Ballettae a8 in C major

Alessandro Poglietti - Sonata a8 in A minor

Johann Heinrich Schmelzer - Serenata (Ciacona) a8 in A major