In their first concert of the season, the La Cetra Vokalensemble will transport you to the court of the Viceroy of Valencia, Fernando de Aragón (1488-1550), who maintained an excellent choir at the cathedral there. The Viceroy's two surviving collections of music suggest that the Christmas Mass by Josquin des Prez, "La, Sol, Fa, Re, Mi," which was popular in Spain, was also performed there. In their performance of des Prez's Mass, the La Cetra vocal ensemble interpolates Christmas carols from the same collections, including some by anonymous authors and others by Spanish composers such as Bartolomé Cárceres and Juan Cepa, who were both active around the mid-16th century. A line from Cárceres' Christmas carol, which is heard at the beginning, gives the entire program its name: when the souls of the righteous, who are waiting for salvation through the arrival of the Messiah, receive the news of Christ's birth, they sing the mass "La, sol, fa, re, mi" out of sheer joy.
The choice of this sequence of notes as the unusual title for des Prez's famous work, published in 1502, is said to have a humorous background: it is a parody of the Italian phrase "Lascia fare mi" (Just let me do it) and alludes to an aristocrat who was known to keep his petitioners and suitors at a distance with this—endlessly repeated—promise.
Tickets are CHF 20-70, half price for students, and CHF 5 for kids under age 15.

Website
lacetra.ch/en/konzerte/missa-la-sol-fa-re-mi/

Where
Martinskirche
Martinskirchplatz 4
4051 Basel

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