A suite from the early baroque dance collection Terpsichore (1612) by Michael Praetorius. Live, 4K UHD video from the Early Music ensemble Voices of Music concert, December, 2016. Please subscribe to our channel https://www.youtube.com/VoicesofMusic/?sub_confirmation=1 Voices of Music FAQ Q. How can I support Voices of Music? A. Donate here: https://voicesofmusic.org/donate.html and we will make more videos like this one :) These videos cost thousands of dollars to make, and the money comes from individual donors. Q. Where can I learn more about this music? A. You can visit our website, https://www.voicesofmusic.org/ Also, subscribe to our video channel! Just click on the logo on our videos. Q. Where can we hear you play in concert? A. We perform in the San Francisco Bay Area. For a concert schedule, visit our website or join our mailing list https://www.voicesofmusic.org/ Q. Where can I buy CDs? A. Our CDs are available on iTunes, Google, Amazon, CD Baby and just about everywhere; you can also buy a CD in a jewel case from Kunaki: https://www.voicesofmusic.org/cds.html Q. What is Early Music performance, or historical performance? A. We play on instruments from the time of the composers, and we use the original music and playing techniques: it’s a special sound. Q. Why are there no conductors? A. Conductors weren’t invented until the 19th century; since we seek to recreate a historical performance, the music is led from the keyboard or violin, or the music is played as chamber music~or both :) For this concert, we selected six dances from the collection and grouped them together to form a suite: Ballet, 0:00 Courante, 1:46 Spagnoletta, 3:09 Volte, 5:12 Pavane 6:08 Bourée.7:40 Michael Praetorius was one of the most important composers and theorists of the late renaissance and early-17th century. His astonishing encyclopedia of music gives us an intriguing glimpse into the instruments and performance practices of the time, and his writing covers all aspects of music. Praetorius wrote popular hymn settings, as well as large-scale compositions that borrowed elements of the polychoral Italian tradition. Praetorius was a tune collector, just like the musicologists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who collected songs and dances from different countries; he planned eight volumes of these secular works, but he only finished one: his book of French instrumental dances Terpsichore, named after the muse of dance (1612). Orchestration: in the 1960s and 1970s, these works were heavily orchestrated—and conducted—in a neo-renaissance style. Although not grounded in historical performance, these orchestrations did, however, introduce a wider audience to the different kinds of instruments in the late renaissance and early baroque and helped popularize the music before Bach. In our performance, we have used strings as the foundation, as this was one of the most popular ways to perform dance music, and added winds, continuo and percussion. V