The music of 'Winter'

Antonio Vivaldi heard music in Vienna's winter winds.

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Vivaldi's "Winter" from "The Four Seasons" will be among four concertos showcased this weekend by the Juneau Bach Society. About two dozen musicians will play in two performances, at 8 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 21, and 4 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 22, at Northern Light United Church.

The four concertos are each about 15 minutes in length and feature virtuoso solos for soprano, violin and cello. Soprano Kathleen Wayne will be featured in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "Exultate, Jubilate" and violinist Steve Tada will be the soloist for the Vivaldi.

Arcangelo Corelli's "Christmas Concerto" and excerpts from J.S. Bach's "Christmas Oratorio" complete the program. "The Christmas Concerto" features violinists Lisa Ibias and Andrew Schirmer and cellist David Seid.

"It's some of the best baroque music for Christmas," said Bruce Simonson, who organized the concert and is conducting.

Vivaldi, a contemporary of Bach, composed "The Four Seasons" around 1725. He wrote four sonnets describing the seasons, and while "The Four Seasons" became well-established in the canon of classical music, Vivaldi's poems are not well-known.

"You hardly ever see them published. They're pretty neat little poems. I think he included those in his early manuscript," Tada said. "He describes slipping on the ice and going out into the cold rain."

Tada said the music in "Winter" evokes raindrops, wind and a winter storm.

Simonson said the two works for Christmas, by Bach and Corelli, feature pastorales - rustic music as might be performed by shepherds watching over their flocks by night.

Excerpts from Bach's Christmas Oratorio include the pastorale from the "Shepherd's Cantata," and variations on the German Christmas carol, "Von Himmel Hoch," (From Heaven Above, to Earth I Come). In the Bach, the strings and flutes are echoed by a contrasting ensemble of reed instruments.

In the Corelli, the group of soloists is echoed and joined by the full ensemble. Simonson called it one of the sweetest, most memorable melodies ever composed. The Christmas concerto debuted around 1700.

"Corelli was a great violin master and had a successful school - and he was a hot composer," Tada said. "Violinists came from all over Europe specifically to study at his school."

About 75 years later, another hot composer burst on the scene, an Austrian child prodigy. Mozart composed "Exultate, Jubilate" in 1773, at the age of 17, for soprano, two oboes, two horns, strings and organ. Simonson said it is perhaps Mozart's best known sacred piece from his early years. This miniature vocal concerto has three main movements, the last of which is the well-known "Allelujah."

"It's a real soprano treasure," Simonson said.

The Juneau Bach Society is an informal group of local musicians. Simonson also organized the last Bach Society concert, an event in September that featured the music of Bach, Mendelssohn and Faure.

As with that event, admission to this weekend's concert is free but donations will be accepted at the door. Place-holder tickets are available at Rainy Day Books and Hearthside Books.