The sixth 2017 Salish Sea Early Music Festival performance, Baroque in transition: 1600-1700, illuminates an evolving 17th century musical perspective in Italy and France on Sunday, May 14, at 7 p.m. at Grace Church, with Seattle Baroque Orchestra founder Ingrid Matthews on baroque violin, Indiana University professor Elisabeth Wright on harpsichord, and flutist Jeffrey Cohan playing both the one-piece renaissance flute and the baroque one-keyed flute.

The Salish Sea Early Music Festival provides a new perspective on 17th-century performance practice in this performance of works for two soprano instruments and harpsichord. Renaissance flute, violin and harpsichord, once a familiar combination of instruments, has been rarely heard since the flute underwent a fundamental evolution in the late 17th century. Although the Baroque period in music is said to begin around 1600, some instruments, notably the transverse flute, were slower than others to evolve to suit the stylistic currents and expressive requirements of the day. This program provides an opportunity to hear the “renaissance” and “baroque” flute types side by side as they relate to these evolving musical colors, which differed greatly in France and Italy.

The program will include works from early 17th-century Italy by Giovanni Legrenzi, Marco Uccellini, Giovanni Battista Buonamente, Tarquinio Merula and Girolamo Frescobaldi, and from late-17th-century France and Italy by Louis Couperin, Marin Marais, Jean-Baptiste Lully and Archangelo Corelli.