Event programme

Panta Rhei
Renaissance music of flow and change

From the planets and stars whirling about the heavens to the lowliest of creatures on earth, motion and change are in us and all about us: a flowing stream or wine from a bottle, flickering flames of a fire, day turning to night, weeks becoming months becoming years, youth and old age. Everything flows: “panta rhei”! Following this ancient expression that has withstood the tests of time, our programme traverses themes of all that flows and changes, both within us and in the world around us. It tiptoes through moralizing odes about inconstance by Claude le Jeune, flows through Isaac’s “Die Brünnlein die da fließen” and the popular drinking tune “Quant je bois du vin claret tout tourne,” and gets lost in wistful songs about the passage of time by Dowland and Arcadelt. The texts spin verses about water and wine, sobriety and drunkenness, happiness and melancholy, and life and death, all to the flowing pulse and rhythm, melody and harmony of music—a sounding embodiment of “panta rhei”.