The 2008 event will incorporate the Johann Heinrich Schmelzer-Wettbewerb, a competition for young (up the age of 35) solo vocal and instrumental performers, and baroque ensembles of all nationalities. In addition to a concert engagement for the winner(s), the finalists also have an opportunity to participate in the festival proper when they appear on 10 May in a programme appropriately entitled “Combattimento musicale”.

Turning to the mainstream of the festival, one finds a prestigious line-up of performers. The opening early evening concert on 9 May is devoted to Bach, the performers being Ad Parnassum, while Bach is also featured on the following day, when the Mass in B minor will be given by the Netherlands Bach Society. Christina Pluhar’s ensemble L’Arpeggiata will feature in two concerts, for the first of which on 9 May they are joined by the King’s Singers in “Il Temperamento Latino”. The French ensemble appears again on 11 May in a programme of arias and cantatas by Luigi Rossi.

Sandwiched between the competition finalists and the Mass in B minor on 10 May, the great keyboard player Gustav Leonhardt will give a harpsichord recital. More Dutch performers in the shape of Juventute Ensemble Sirocco of The Hague provide the late afternoon concert on 12 May, a programme including music by Corelli, Theodorico Pedrini and Joseph-Marie Amiot entitled “Musik aus der verbotenen Stadt”, a reference to Beijing, where both Pedrini and the French writer Amiot worked and died.

Closer to home territory the long-established Clemencic Consort will give a concert devoted to Biber on 12 May, while the locally-based L’Orfeo Barockorchester present a programme entitled “Wien – Paris en route” on the morning of 11 May. The festival will conclude on 12 May with a programme of polyphonic works given by Spectaculum to celebrate 30 years of the festival at Melk Abbey.

Further details from: www.barocktage.at/programme.asp