The Dettingen Te Deum was written in commemoration of the last battle led by an English king; specifically, George II in 1743. This concert will feature two other Handel masterpieces; 

Concerto Grosso Op. 6 No. 11, Zadok the Priest, and Eternal Source of Light Divine.

Bach begins the creation of what he judges to be the core of his work with his cantatas. He was always concerned for his works to be organised through games of symmetry and alternation creating a balanced structure to the expression of his thoughts.

This concert takes us on a musical journey through the sonatas of Bach's second surviving son Carl Philipp Emanuel.

The first mandolin soloist to be nominated for a classical Grammy, Avi Avital has been compared to Andres Segovia for his championship of his instrument and to Jascha Heifitz for his incredible virtuosity. Avital is a driving force behind the reinvigoration of the mandolin repertoire.

Similar to the set of the six Brandenburg concertos, the orchestration of the four orchestral suites varies somewhat, highlighting different instruments. They are very rarely played together and consist of an ‘ouverture’ followed by a set of dance movements in the French style.

This concert approaches baroque instruments through roots music that like flamenco is a constant growth of new branches from the trunk of tradition, a constant interaction between the new and the old.

A very personal choice of Bach’s transcriptions paired with music by Messiaen and Rachmaninoff, both of which were inspired by Baroque themes.

Bach's organ chorales are one of the most surprising jewels in the creative corpus of the great Johann Sebastian Bach. The consort of violas da gamba can perfectly replicate the texture and colour of the organ, so transcribing this music for this ensemble becomes a very respectful and fluid metamorphic process.

It was in the aristocratic salons and academies of Naples that instrumental chamber music flourished. Concerts were often open to the public in the houses of the nobility. This programme recreates this atmosphere in a selection of chamber sonatas by the greatest composers of the Neapolitan school.

This programme brings together music by two composers from different eras that at first glance have nothing in common, however the juxtaposition of these two genres of music by lautten compagney BERLIN is very intriguing and aesthetically pleasing.

An eighteenth-century choreographic fantasy set to music by Clarke, Croft, Eccles, Finger, Lully, Paisible and Purcell, devised and created by Stephen Wyatt & Evelyn Nallen telling the story about how English choreographer John Weaver fought to achieve his dream of creating a proper dance-drama in a world that regarded dance as a frivolous side-line.

The programme to be performed is for music written for viola da gamba which adapts itself beautifully to the baroque viola because of the similar range and texture.  The composers proposed for this programme were all master viola da gambists.

When one thinks of Baroque music, Handel and Vivaldi are amongst the first names to come to mind. Both composers are also well-known for their wide range of repertoire written for castrato, today widely performed by countertenors.

Tranquillity and trance, ecstasy and exhaustion, dream, and reality – with this new programme the SIGNUM saxophone quartet and Kai Schumacher on piano embark on an odyssey through the realms of possibility and contrast called The Golberg Nights Project, originally inspired by this festival’s artistic director.

In 1773 Mozart’s famous motet Exultate Jubilate was premiered at the church of Sant’Antonio Abate in Milan. Coro e Orchestra Ghislieri have created Mozart in Milan, commemorating this music and other Milanese sacred music by Mozart’s Milanese contemporaries; Gianandrea Fioroni, Johann Christian Bach and Melchiorre Chiesa.

Amongst the last of his publications, Johann Kuhnau's Musicalische Vorstellung Einiger Biblischer Historien (1700) stands in his keyboard output as the most emphatic manifestation of the multi-faceted mind and activity of one of Baroque music's most remarkable polymaths.

Buxtehude’s cantata cycle, Membra Jesu Nostri, is a unique work based on texts from a mediaeval Latin hymn, ‘Salve mundi salutare’. The cycle contains seven cantatas each dedicated to a different part of Christ’s crucified body.

The Rosary Sonatas are a group of fifteen short sonatas and a passacaglia for violin and basso continuo written by Bohemian composer Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber around 1674. Rooted in Biber’s long-time employment with the court of the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, they are rare examples of instrumental sacred music.

The image of the burning heart is a very well-known catholic symbol of Jesus’ love for humanity. This is translated into verse and music in this collection of motets and sonatas by Corelli, Bonporti and Handel.

A selection of works transcribed for modern cello and harpsichord by Johann Sebastian Bach and his family with Jorge Philipp Telemann as a guest.

Duchess Aurora di Sanseverino commissioned this opera for a wedding celebration in Naples; on a spicy Italian libretto penned by her private secretary Nicola Giuvo. Handel composed Aci in his early twenties, during the highly formative years he spent in Italy. The most famous aria for lyric bass from this opera is Fra L’Ombre e Gl'Orrori.

The publication of Rameau’s Nouvelles Suites de Pièces de Clavecin marked an important development in his compositional technique. Unusually for 18th century music, Rameau and his contemporaries anticipated the impressionistic music of Debussy because of their very strong descriptive element.

This programme explores the work of English composers from the 17th and 18th centuries well-known for their art in enhancing the meaning of words through music. Many of the texts explore simple pastoral scenes where shepherds and shepherdesses fall in and out of love, sometimes with disastrous consequences.