This thorough look at the Centuries of Gold features a hefty sample of works from the trio synonymous with the Spanish renaissance: Morales, Guerrero and Victoria. High points of the festival are concerts with nothing but music by these composers.

From works by Cristóbal de Morales, one can enjoy the Lamentaciones y Magnificats, performed by Michael Noone’s Ensemble Plus Ultra (30 August) and the Missa pro defunctis by Capilla Flamenca, directed by Dirk Snellings (4 September). As for Francisco Guerrero, there will be festive pieces composed for Seville Cathedral and performed by Doulce Mémoire, directed by Denis Raisin Dadre (2 September) and Missa Saeculorum Amen by La Hispanoflamenca with Bart Vandewege at the helm (3 September).

The festival has organized three concerts with the music of Tomás Luis de Victoria: The Sixteen with Harry Christophers will perform his Requiem (31 August), La Colombina will give the Officium Hebdomadae Sanctae (3 September) and on 7 September Al Ayre Español will perform Ne timeas Maria as the festival’s closing concert. Also worth pointing out is 31 August, when the festival will centre on the vihuela with a busy programme of lectures and concerts by Armoniosi Concerti, Orphénica Lyra, Xavier Díaz-Latorre and Hopkinson Smith.

One of the few concerts that strays a bit from the main theme is the one that opens the festival. It starts off with Rameau’s Les Indes galantes, followed by a musical reconstruction of Le sacre du printemps by Stravinsky, to be performed by the Kölner Akademie (29 August). The festival and its focus on the Spanish Renaissance are rounded out with a series of complementary activities that are for the most part offer free admission, such as a Festival Fringe held in different areas of the old quarters and featuring promising young musicians who play early music.

One section called Fabulous Fringe will be played at the Theater Kikker. Utrecht will also host a symposium for specialists on 29-30 August at the Cervantes Institute, in which the musicologist and performer Juan Carlos Asensio, among other researchers, will take part. Finally, the Early Music Exhibition that accompanies the festival each year will focus on the vihuela and its main builders. As they say, in Spanish, ¡Que disfruten del Festival! (Enjoy the festival). Updated information is available at www.oudemuziek.nl