Published in Cologne in 1599 and soon set to four voices by Michael Praetorius, the chorale "Es ist ein Ros’ entsprungen" (A Spotless Rose) remains one of the most popular Christmas carols to this day. For Voces Suaves, it forms the starting point for an Advent and Christmas program on the threshold between the Renaissance and the Baroque. Songs are sung of waiting and longing, of deep peace and great joy between cis-alpine Venice and trans-alpine Saxony, between Catholic and Lutheran sacred music traditions, and between the pure nobility of old vocal polyphony and the harmonic intimacy of early cantional settings and choral arias. read less