Wild Giants

We spend our days looking for stories. Whether choosing a vivid beach read, gathering around the campfire (looking for symbiosis around the water cooler!), or queuing up the next Netflix series we are going to binge-watch, humans have an insatiable and evolutionary appetite for the magic of wondrous stories. The best of these stories don’t even always have the flashiest titles or plotlines; they linger masterfully, and they astonish us by deepening our humanity. Heartland Baroque (along with guest artists, Janelle Davis, baroque viola, and Lance Pedigo, percussion) is thrilled to present “Wild Giants,” a program honoring the story of a hero’s journey through music and text. Miquel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote, one of the great novels in Western literature is a pivotal work, telling the classic tale of a knight, his squire, and their quests in the name of chivalry. This fable is curiously modern, giving voice to an array of brilliant characters and their divergent experiences with dignity and compassion, and offering a nuanced critique of the realities of 17th-Century Spain and Imperialism. Many composers throughout history have been inspired to tell the story of this literary masterpiece through music, and this concert features Georg Phillip Telemann’s sonic tribute, ‘Burlesque de Quixotte.’ The other composers in this concert represent the lexicon of the strongest artists under Austrian Habsburg rule in the early Baroque period. Heartland Baroque is thrilled to commemorate this dynasty of musicians with works that enhance the depiction of those who take up the sword to defend the helpless. Musicians such as Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, Antonio Bertali, Giovanni Valentini, and their contemporaries will be featured, with works for violins, viola, cello, theorbo and baroque guitar, dulcian, and percussion. Music from Heartland Baroque’s new CD “The Benevolent Monarch” will be included, and copies will be available for purchase at the concert.