The 1600s were certainly the worst of times for countless Europeans with the unprecedented slaughter of the Thirty Years War, great plagues raging across borders and millions of families displaced and dispossessed.

Little wonder, then, that composers of the period sought to offer a lifeline through music of surpassing beauty and, often, hope and joy.

Some of their works featured in a delightful concert performed by Salut! Baroque in Canberra and Sydney.  

Salut! Baroque: Bohemian Rhapsody. Photo supplied

The Italians were the flagbearers of the Baroque and as their musicians took up appointments at various European courts their influence expanded, including to centres such as Prague in the heart of Bohemia and on to the Habsburg Empire.

Salut’s co-Artistic Directors recorderist Sally Melhuish and cellist Tim Blomfield took this as a starting point for their Bohemian Rhapsody tour which featured 10 musicians led by respected HIP violinist and ARCO Concertmaster Rachael Beesley.   

Austrian Heinrich Biber is known for his arresting pieces evoking the sounds of war, drunken soldiers and local bird and wildlife but his all-string Sonata in B minor from Fidicinium Sacro-Profanum made for a relatively peaceful start to the concert with its four short movements of alternating fast-slow passages, by turns dancy and stately.

George Wills on baroque guitar featured in the Largo from Antonio Vivaldi’s Lute Concerto in D major before – staying in Venice – the twin recorders of Melhuish and Alana Blackburn joined the ensemble for the Allegro from his Double Concerto RV 535.

Works by eight lesser known composers followed. Some of them influenced Bach and Telemann, including Johann Joseph Fux, Kapellmeister at the Viennese Imperial Court, whose book on counterpoint was on the shelves of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven.

His Ouverture-Suite in G minor from Concentus Musico Instrumentalis, composed in 1701, included an attractive duet for soprano recorders which illustrated his dictum of “theory without practice is useless”.

Slovakian Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer, who was heavily influenced by Lully and the French composers, provided a template for Bach’s subsequent orchestral suites with his collection Le journal de printemps, while František Jiránek, dubbed the “Czech Vivaldi”, went to Venice to study with the great master. 

The Grave movement from his Violin Concerto in D minor provided a glorious, yearning showcase for Beesley’s soloist skills.

Next up Salut! closes its season in November with a look at Baroque opera and vocal music.

For more information on Salut! Baroque in 2026, visit baroque.com.au