Fire & Ice: Exploring Renaissance Passions

We are all just human. We love, we desire, we dare; we fear, we grieve, and we get angry. In the 1530s, the Spanish philosopher Juan Luis Vives published a new classification of human emotions based on his view that they arise out of judgements about good and evil. In this concert, the Ripieno Choir, under their new Musical Director, Patrick Allies, will examine Vives’ categories through the vocal music of his 16th-century European contemporaries.

These emotions, and the composers who brought them to life, cross boundaries of genre, style and language, with everything from pious motets to scandalous madrigals. In sacred works by William Byrd, Alonso Lobo and Raphaella Aleotti, we hear of a loving God who also strikes fear into his people. And in the secular works, Carlo Gesualdo, Madalena Casulana and Thomas Weelkes tell the stories of lovesick poets and lustful admirers.

The Ripieno Choir invite you to join them as they explore the emotional world of the Renaissance.