Three Balletti and Three Serenate by Johann Heinrich Schmelzer

This edition is a florilegium of three Balletti and three Serenate by Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, who was Hofballetkomponist at the Habsburg court in Vienna from 1665 through the early 1670s. The individual works are related through an interesting interconnection of movements and their different arrangements. These six collections are representative of the dance music composed by Schmelzer for court or noble assemblies, where people would “meet with one another to eat, drink, converse, play, make music, and also usually conclude in dancing” (Gottfried Taubert, 1717). Two works, Der Cavalieri Ballett (1668) and the Serenata con altre arie (1669) were designed for the masked balls towards the end of Carnival, and the Serenada in Mascara (1669; with a new reconstruction of the “Ciaccona” a due chori) was composed for a similar Carnival ball held yearly “to praise the court ladies”. The three remaining works– a Serenada a 5 (c.1670), a Balletti a due chori (c.1669), and a Balletto (after 1671), help demonstrate the rich creative ideas Schmelzer brought to the composition and rearrangement of these six interrelated works.