Classical music from before the music became classic
Echoes-of-dance is an energetic concert program with Spanish and Latin American Baroque music from the first half of the 17th century. The program draws on the so-called Dance Songs that were the talk of the town in Spain in the transition between the 16th and 17th centuries. The songs found themselves in the fertile crossroads between art and popular music, and initially aroused both indignation and anger among the established cultural elite, mainly because of the sensual movements of the dancers. Dance rhythms such as zarabanda (sarabande) and chacona (chaconne) were for a time prohibited by law; it could give up to 4 years of penal labor at the galleys to play, dance or sing a zarabanda or chacona! Still, the dance songs ended up integrating into the established art music, several of them as part of the fine baroque suite. But before then, they were the rock 'n' roll of the day!
