Sunflower Baroque to present concert "Is that Music Italian or French" on Oct. 23

Sunflower Baroque will present the concert “Is That Music Italian or French?” on Sunday, Oct. 23, 2016 at 2:30 p.m. in Swarthout Recital Hall.

The program addresses the gradual acceptance of Italian musical styles in France in the second half of the Baroque period, as French composers finally bought into the virtuosity and freer compositional approaches that one heard from Italian composers, superimposing these ideas into the more formalized French musical genres.

Highlights of the program include sonatas by Jean-Marie Leclair l’Ainé (1697-1764) and Johann Joachim Quantz (1697-1773), the latter being a German composer who wrote highly Italianate music, along with excerpts from the religious music of Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) and the witty Apotheosis of Corelli by François Couperin (1668-1733). Couperin’s work chronicles a fanciful visit to the musical paradise of Mount Parnassus by the famed Italian violinist Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713), an opportunity for the French composer to combine elements of French and Italian style in a revealing manner.

Sunflower Baroque is a period instrument group that includes: harpsichordist Elizabeth Egbert Berghout, KU associate professor of organ and carilloneur at KU; Joy Laird, a local professional Baroque flutist and recorder player; and Baroque cellist Paul Laird, KU professor of musicology. Joining Sunflower Baroque for this program are Baroque flutist Dorothy Glick Maglione, a KU doctoral student in musicology, and tenor Anthony Maglione, director of choral activities at William Jewell College.

The concert is free and the public is invited.