Rundāle Palace to host Baroque music concert exploring emotion and affect
On September 5, Rundāle Palace's White Hall will host the ensemble Džezbaroks performing a concert titled 'To Explain and to Feel: Affects and Elements,' exploring Baroque-era ideas about music and emotion. It forms part of the concert series 'Conversations in the Palace with Music.'
Rundāle Palace Museum will host a Baroque music concert titled 'To Explain and to Feel: Affects and Elements' on September 5 at 6 p.m. in the White Hall, performed by the ensemble Džezbaroks. The event was announced by museum public relations specialist Ilze Rence.
The concert draws on the Baroque-era belief that music could not only express human emotion but actively guide it. Composers and music theorists of the 17th and 18th centuries studied how intervals, tonalities, rhythms and harmony affected listeners, giving rise to the so-called theory of affects — one of the defining achievements of Baroque aesthetics. Under this view, music was seen as an art form capable of persuading, moving, unsettling or soothing its audience.
A dialogue with the palace's architecture
Organizers say the concert's themes will resonate with Rundāle Palace's architecture and interior design, where symbols, proportions and allegories create their own layered narrative. Audiences are invited to notice the connection between the music performed and the artistic language of the palace's interiors.
The program features works by Italian Baroque composers Girolamo Frescobaldi, Andrea Falconieri, Francesco Cavalli, Cristofaro Caresana and Giovanni Antonio Pandolfi Mealli, whose compositions blend lyrical melodies with virtuosic instrumental writing and contrasting affects — love and longing, joy and melancholy, playfulness and drama.
Džezbaroks performs with Lāsma Meldere-Šestakova on Baroque violin, Jānis Strazdiņš on vocals and cajón, Jānis Rubiks on jazz double bass, and Aigars Reinis on positive organ.
The 20-euro ticket price also includes admission to the museum's permanent exhibition, since the museum will remain open until 6 p.m. on the day of the concert. Visitors are encouraged to arrive early to explore the exhibition before the performance.
The concert belongs to the series 'Conversations in the Palace with Music,' which presents Baroque music events in contemporary interpretation, inspired by the palace's architecture and gardens. The series' closing concert is scheduled for November 21.
