The New York-based Parthenia Viol Consort will perform its first Tucson concert in nearly 30 years on Sunday, Feb. 27, with Arizona Early Music.
It's Arizona Early Music's first event since calling off its Tucson Baroque Festival in January when COVID cases started to spike.
Parthenia, a viola da gamba quartet, will perform "House of Habsburg: Music of the Holy Roman Empire," a program that explores what Arizona Early Music describes as "a wealth of riches for viol quartet" from the Habsburg dynasty that ruled Austria from the mid-15th century through the early 19th century.
Parthenia has been praised for its "unanimity and grasp of the style" that will remind listeners of "a great string quartet playing Mozart or Beethoven,” Fanfare magazine opined. The Boston Musical Intelligencer said their playing was "uniformly superb."
On Sunday, expect to hear the quartet playing works by Josquin des Prez, Heinrich Isaac, Michael Praetorius and others using period viola de gambas — think early version of the modern day cello.
The concert begins at 3 p.m. at Grace St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 2331 E. Adams St. Tickets are $30 through azearlymusic.or/buy-tickets.
