During the 17th century, the term "Symphony" or "Sinfonia" was usually applied to the opening music for operas, oratorios and cantatas. But gradually, during the 18th century, the symphony developed to become the most important format for independent orchestral music. The formal proportions were dramatically expanded and the instrumentation refined and expanded, paving the way for the genre's dominant status in the Romantic period with composers such as Beethoven, Brahms and Mahler.

1774 – The year of the symphony

Det Kgl. Bibliotek, The Royal Library

This concert tells a story we've heard many times before: a young, talented artist travels the world for inspiration, and in his encounter with the wider world, his life and art are transformed. These 'journeys of discovery' were taken by countless artists in the 18th and 19th centuries. But this formative journey would prove to have major consequences, not only for the artist himself, but also for art and history as a whole. For this journey changed Swedish music forever.

Roman – den svenske Händel

The course emphasizes the importance of music in interpreting the images and introduces students to various pieces of music from the Baroque period, music that many children would not otherwise encounter and which provides a good understanding of the diversity of music. The students create new stories based on music and images, and the highlight of the day is the final concert where the musicians accompany the students' stories from room to room.

SMK x CoCo: Barokekspeditionen III

SMK – Statens Museum for Kunst

SMK x CoCo: Baroque Expeditions II

SMK x CoCo: Baroque Expedition I

Concerto Copenhagen and the Royal Danish Academy of Music will celebrate Weyse's 250th anniversary at a large-scale Royal Danish Academy of Music will celebrate Weyse's 250th anniversary. Through presentations, talks and various concert formats concert formats with over 100 performers, the focus will be on the composer, his person and his time. in focus.

Weyse Festival 2024: The Church

The Conservatory Concert Hall

Weyse Festival 2024

Every year, Concerto Copenhagen, under the direction of Peter Spissky, organizes an intensive workshop with classical music students from MGK, where they work with the special playing techniques and musical expressions of Baroque music. The program concludes with a concert where students and CoCo musicians perform works by Vivaldi, Handel and Rameau.

CoCo x MGK

Trinitatis Church

Lammermuir Festival 2024: Novel, Handel, London

St Mary’s Parish Church, Haddington

Lammermuir Festival 2024: Harmonic Tribute

Holy Trinity Episcopal Church Haddington

“En slags tale i musik” kalder Lars Ulrik Mortensen stylus phantasticus og understreger, at denne musik må spilles “så den kan overraske eller chokere og tage publikum med på en rejse,” og at dens udførelse må og skal “gå helt ud til – og momentvis over – kanten.” Aftenens program giver så overdådige eksempler på datidens frie fabuleren, at det giver begrebet “barokmusik” helt nye dimensioner.

Lammermuir Festival 2024: Stylus Phantasticus

"A kind of speech in music" Lars Ulrik Mortensen calls the stylus phantasticus and emphasizes that this music must be played "so that it can surprise or shock and take the audience on a journey," and that its performance must and must "go all the way to - and momentarily over – the edge.” The evening's program provides such lavish examples of the free fabulist of the time that it gives the term "baroque music" completely new dimensions.

Haddington

Lammermuir Festival 2024: Buxtehude & Friends II

The composer C.E.F. Weyse is known for his beautiful melodies for songs such as I østen stiger solen op and Julen har bragt velsignet bud.
He is also known for his notorious reluctance to travel, and indeed he never left Denmark after coming to Copenhagen at the age of 15. So apart from some regular destinations to Roskilde and Vallø, his travels were on foot around old Copenhagen.

City walk: In the footsteps of Weyse

Ofelia Plads

Arvo Pärt's music is in many ways a rebellion against post-war classical music, which, roughly speaking, meant louder, faster, bigger and more of everything. Pärt's music is anything but – it is gentle, slow and insists on repetition and silence. The early music movement, of which Concerto Copenhagen is a leading part, was also created as a rebellion against the classical music scene in post-war Europe and - in many ways like Pärt - seeks originality in the simple and transparent, a humility towards the musical raw material and the shortest possible path from the musician's expression to the audience's impression.

Nargen Festival: Pärt & Händel

St. John's Church, Tallinn

Arvo Pärts musik er på mange måder en oprør mod efterkrigstidens klassiske musik, som, groft sagt, betød højere, hurtigere, større og mere af alting. Pärts musik er alt andet end det – den er blid, langsom og insisterer på gentagelser og stilhed. Den tidlige musikbevægelse, som Concerto Copenhagen er en ledende del af, blev også skabt som et oprør mod den klassiske musikscene i efterkrigstidens Europa og søger – på mange måder ligesom Pärt – originalitet i det enkle og gennemsigtige, en ydmyghed over for det musikalske råmateriale og den kortest mulige vej fra musikerens udtryk til publikums indtryk.

Nargenfestival: Pärt & Händel

Tartu 2024: Pärt & Händel

St. Paul's Church Tartu

Den danske stjernesolist Andrea Brantelid og Concerto Copenhagen vil, under ledelse af Lars Ulrik Mortensen, dykke ned i en tid, hvor barokken karakteristiske træk bliver erstattet af nye innovationer.

Koncerten viser et vendepunkt i musikhistorien, hvor vi bevæger os fra barokken med musik af Georg Philipp Telemann, over Bachsønnen Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, til den wienerklassiske musiks ”faderskikkelse”, Joseph Haydn.

Stavanger Festival: Times of transition - Andreas Brantelid & Concerto Copenhagen

St. Petri Church, Stavanger

Handel's 'Water Music' was performed for the first time on the water – up the Thames – when King George I, several aristocrats and officials sailed in the royal barge at Whitehall Palace on an excursion up towards Chelsea. Here another barge, with approximately 50 musicians, followed the King and his company as they performed Handel's music. Many Londoners went out to the river to hear the concert – and the King was so pleased with the music that he ordered it to be repeated at least three times, both on the journey upriver to Chelsea and on the way back until he landed again at Whitehall.

Stavanger Festival: Water Music

Stylus Phantasticus

Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek

Händels ’Water Music’ blev første gang netop opført på vandet– op ad Themsen – da Kong Georg I, adskillige aristokrater og embedsmænd sejlede med den kongelige pram ved Whitehall Palace på en udflugt op mod Chelsea. Her fulgte en anden pram, med cirka 50 musikere, Kongen og hans selskab, mens de opførte Händels musik. Mange londonere tog ud til floden for at høre koncerten – og kongen var så tilfreds med musikken, at han beordrede, at den skulle gentages mindst tre gange, både på turen opstrøms til Chelsea og på tilbagevejen, indtil han igen landede ved Whitehall.

Roman, Handel, London

Aa Church

Gjethuset

Hindsgavl Castle

It is the story of the Baroque fascination with the shepherd's life, of two worlds that are attracted and repelled by each other, but must be blended because they are not complete without each other.

The morning we were shepherds - Stenbroens Barokdage

Unitarisk Kirkesamfund

Buxtehude composed the cantata cycle Membra Jesus Nostri, seven connected cantatas under the same BuxWV number in 1680 as a gift and gesture to his "noble friend", as he writes in the dedication, Gustav Düben, the Royal Kapellmeister in Stockholm. The full title of the work is "Membra Jesu nostri patiantis sanctissima" - "The Holy Limbs of Our Suffering Jesus", and it is a sacred homage to the crucified body of the Savior, addressed to its individual parts, from foot to thigh -ad pedes, ad genua, ad manus, ad latus, ad pectus, ad cor, ad faciem (feet, knees, hands, side, chest, heart and face).

STOCKHOLM EARLY MUSIC FESTIVAL: Membra Jesu Nostri

Saint Gertrude, German Church

The seasons have always been a great inspiration for composers, especially spring, when nature comes alive from its winter hibernation. Even in the Baroque period, music can be found that often tried to imitate the sounds and moods of spring, from birdsong to the tinkling of a brook.

Springtime!

Concerto Copenhagen and Lars Ulrik Mortensen present an Easter concert with music that puts words and emotions to the indescribable and incomprehensible; human suffering and distress caused by war, violence and destruction.

Zelenka Lamentations

Barrie Kosky's award-winning production of Handel's Saul is an operatic experience in a class of its own, with sumptuous period costumes, picturesque tableaux and magnificent music.

"Saul" is the best opera Handel never wrote - an intense, dramatic, magnificent musical tour de force that combines the best of both worlds.

EPSG:4326

Saul - premiere

Copenhagen Opera House

In 1656, Swedish Queen Christina founded the academy "Arcadia" in Rome. Members discussed literature, art, science and music, and many composers were part of Christina's academy. These included A. Scarlatti, Corelli, Stradella and Pasquini - all composers whose music still stands today as some of the most innovative and expressive of the Italian Baroque. For example, Corelli's entire opus 1, consisting of 12 trio sonatas, is dedicated to Queen Christina.

Queen Kristina - queen and muse

The various genres of classical music have typically emerged through a playful and experimental approach to existing contemporary musical material. Today, there is a rather violent divide between rhythmic and classical music, which we at Concerto Copenhagen want to challenge. What happens if we invite young people between 15 and 30 into our musical space and let them compose on their own terms?

Co:ZY x RIA

Kunstens Hus

Co:Cura Barok is a small trio consisting of violin, flute and lute and has the opportunity to perform in many different locations around hospitals, nursing homes and activity centers, such as nursing rooms and common rooms - creating an intimate musical format.

Co:Cura Baroque

Gentofte Hospital

This year's Christmas concert embraces our many different traditions, as well as those we have in common. In many places around the world, we have always celebrated the winter solstice in our own way. The Vikings 'drank Christmas', but today we celebrate the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, and one thing is almost always common across cultures: music.

Christmas concert 2023

Concerto Copenhagen presents some of Bach's most beloved music when, with violinist Fredrik From in focus, they perform the two violin concertos, the two double concertos with violinist Hannah Tibell and oboist Antoine Torunczyk as soloists, and the orchestral suite no. 3, which includes Air - one of Bach's most iconic movements.

Bach's violin concertos

Örgryte New Church

MGK and Concerto Copenhagen

Baroque expeditions

National Gallery of Denmark

Johann Sebastian Bach composed his six Brandenburg Concertos BWV 1046-1051 around 1720 as a gift to the Margrave of Brandenburg. As far as we know, the Brandenburg Concertos were never performed by Bach himself, but Bach took parts of the music and reused it in other contexts - including as instrumental movements in cantatas.

Brandenburg Concertos 7-12

Helios Cinema & Cultural Center

Odense electoral congregation

Sankt Nicolai Church, Bornholm

Viborg Music Hall

Musikkens Hus, Aalborg

It's inevitable to note that the history of classical music is primarily dominated by male artists. This is mainly due to the fact that for long periods of time, it was absolutely inappropriate for women to appear as artists in public. Therefore, their music was often only performed in private spaces and known only to a closed circle.

Women in Baroque music

Koncertkirken

Welcome to a world of drama and drapery, theater and the Thirty Years' War, sensuality and strong emotions! For the first time ever, SMK is presenting a major exhibition on art in the Baroque period in collaboration with Concerto Copenhagen.

SMK wednesday

Co:ZY is an innovative collaboration between SMK and Concerto Copenhagen that invites upper primary school students to explore Baroque art and music in a new way.

CO:ZY Baroque x SMK

Concerto Copenhagen rediscovers the absolute hits from 1840’s and Tivoli’s greatest attraction – music of the legendary H. C. Lumbye.
Today when we normally hear the Champagne Galop it is played by modern symphony orchestras with 60 musicians or even more, but it has not always been that way.

Champagne! Lumbye and the sound of Tivoli!

The Glass Hall in Tivoli

Frederiksdal Chamber Folk Festival

Frederiksdal Skovdistrikt

Music known by millions and for many almost the definition of classical music. Concerto Copenhagen presents a summer tour with The Four Seasons by Vivaldi!
Le quattro Stagioni, the four violin concertos depicting the year in Italy, are without comparison Vivaldi’s most famous and most played work. Many can hum along without necessarily knowing what it is they are humming to – and to even more people it is almost the definition of what classical music is.

The Four Seasons by Vivaldi

Sorø Abbey Church

The Nordic Ligths Festival celebrates a musical midsummer evening in Berlin by bringing together four of the Nordic Baroque orchestras, as well as Germany's leading Baroque orchestra, the Freiburger Barock Orchestra! 

Nordic Lights Festival - Berlin

Berliner Philharmonie

Hospital concerts

Herlev Hospital

The morning we were shepherds

Køge Town Hall

Recreated Bach, Bach Recreated!

The Black Diamond

The great composer Arvo Pärt turns 90 on 11 September – reason enough to celebrate him! His imposing, rich-sounding and fabulously well-written music builds bridges between the music of the Baroque and our time. It no longer tries to go somewhere, like the music of the 19th century, but abandons itself completely to the here and now. It waits, listening out for single sounds and opens our ears to new musical and spiritual experiences.

Concerto Copenhagen

Jun 11, 2025

Arvo Pärt & G. F. Händel

Mar 24, 2025

1774 – The year of the symphony

Nov 16, 2024

Roman – den svenske Händel

Concerto Copenhagen