A few exciting classical music events for this weekend, with some Christmas liturgy ahead of us. Liturgical music during the holiday season is like giving to charity: you have to assuage your guilt of ignoring it too much during the rest of the year by attending at least one sung mass. Or write a check. Or kill two birds with one stone, since all orchestras below are non-profit.

Cozzolani was a 17th century nun, and you can hear her Mass performed by Magnificat. The nuns were playing music from behind a partition in the convent's church so that the lay person could hear but not see. The performance will also include a modern world premiere, as Magnificat recreated some orchestrations from fragments of Motets that Cozzolani wrote and whose bass lines got lost since the 1650s. Music director Warren Stewart, whom we interviewed here, will also play the cello. This composer has a special meaning for Magnificat, as they just launched their Cozzolani project to record the integral of her work on CD. You can pre-order here. Concerts are tonight in Menlo, tomorrow in Berkeley and Sunday in SF.

Philharmonia Baroque will play Vivaldi's Gloria, and the appropriate season among the four Vivaldi violin concerti (with Elizabeth Blumenstock leading as the soloist). The concert will feature the Philharmonia Chorale prominently, and the performance will be conducted by chorale director Bruce Lamott. Philharmonia Baroque plays tonight in Palo Alto, tonight and tomorrow in Berkeley, Tuesday in Lafayette, and next Friday in SF.

Also, you can hear another Mass, that of Guillaume de Machaut next Friday and Saturday at Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, the church in neighboring the French consulate. This one will bring you back to the 14th century. His Messe de Nostre Dame is credited as the first ordinary mass, which pretty much set the genre on its way. Concert info here.