*** Live recording, Leuven, 2023 ***

Six singers and six instrumentalists take you to the Austrian mountains for an hour of delightful music that is also an hour of peace.

Austria, somewhere between Salzburg and Vienna.

A thick layer of snow covers the ground.

A shepherd yodels quietly and looks for a place where he and his sheep can shelter in the mountains. In the middle of the night.

Peace and tranquility rule the surrounding land.

The church's organ is broken. But there is a guitar.

These were the circumstances in which Still Nacht, heilige Nacht was first heard exactly 205 years ago, at midnight on 25 December 1818.

Currende recreated this atmosphere during its four Christmas concerts "Wintertime in Leuven", a programme of Austrian works composed between the 16th and 19th centuries, with Puer natus est and Hör Nachbar, ach sag mir, was ist da heut Nacht by Joseph Haydn.

The ensemble's trademark polyphonic works are represented in music by Philippus de Monte and Jacob Regnart; there are also baroque works by Johann Joseph Fux, Georg Muffat and Antonio Caldara as well as music from the Classical period with adapted repertoire by Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.