Maurice Steger

Bohemian Baroque refers to Baroque-era music cultivated in the historical lands of Bohemia and Moravia (today the Czech Republic). It flourished in courts, cathedral chapels, Jesuit colleges, and pilgrimage churches during the 17th and early 18th centuries. Stylistically, it blends Italianate concertato writing and the stylus phantasticus with the contrapuntal rigor of Central Europe. It emphasizes basso continuo, expressive rhetoric, chromatic inflection, and brilliant writing for strings and natural trumpets, while also preserving a rich vernacular hymn tradition (kancionál) in Czech. The repertoire spans masses, litanies, motets, sonatas, sacred cantatas, and devotional songs, ranging from monumental polychoral works to intimate pieces for voice and continuo. Its sound world is at once ceremonial and devotional, often marked by festive trumpets for feast days and poignant chromaticism in penitential movements.

Recorder is a family of end-blown fipple flutes (sopranino, soprano, alto/treble, tenor, bass and beyond) prized for their pure, flexible tone and agile articulation. Readily identifiable by a whistle-like mouthpiece and finger holes (with forked fingerings for chromatic notes), the instrument can sound intimate and speech-like or bright and penetrating, depending on size and technique. As a repertory tag, “recorder” centers on music written for or featuring the recorder across Renaissance and Baroque traditions, as well as 20th–21st century revivals. It spans solo fantasias and sonatas, concerti with basso continuo or orchestra, chamber consort music, and contemporary works using extended techniques. Historically informed performance practice is common, but modern composers also exploit the instrument’s unique colors in new idioms.