Brattleboro Camerata Presents “Treasure Hidden Within”

The Brattleboro Camerata presents “Treasure Hidden Within,” a program exploring how composers take pre-existing music and hide it within the structure of a new piece, infusing the latter with the essence of the older work.

The “hidden treasures” in the December 10 concert include a popular secular Medieval tune (embedded in Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina’s Missa L’homme armé a 4), sacred Gregorian chant melodies (hidden in Maurice Duruflé’s Quatre Motets sur des Thèmes Grégoriens), a musical puzzle / cryptogram (embedded in Josquin Desprez’s Missa La sol fa re mi), and a challenge melody from a composition contest (Giuseppe Verdi’s “Ave Maria”).

“The practice of weaving a pre-existing melody into new music has its origins in the Medieval era, and really blossomed into a widespread practice during the Renaissance,” says Camerata Music Director Jonathan Harvey. “Our December program is an attempt to demonstrate the different ways composers can create hidden meanings with this technique, from the Renaissance all the way up to the 20th century.”

The Brattleboro Camerata is preparing a Spring 2024 program titled “Make it a Place of Springs,” which will consist of pieces focused on nature and the natural world, including Renaissance works by Clement Janequin, Maddalena Casulana, Thomas Tallis, Vicente Lusitano, Thomas Morley, and others, as well as more recent pieces by Charles Stanford, Benjamin Britten, and Pulitzer Prize-winner Caroline Shaw.