A pre-festival talk by Peter Holman, Artistic Director

The Goldberg Variations is Bach’s largest and greatest work in variation form, imitated by later composers. It is also a matchless compendium of virtuoso keyboard writing, exploiting the two-manual harpsichord to the full.

In this new venture young keyboard players are given the opportunity to be coached by Steven Devine in music by J. S. Bach. Listeners are guaranteed fascinating insights into Bach’s music, the challenges of performing it on different keyboard instruments and the art of performance in general.

Pre-concert talk by Dr Stephen Rose, Senior Lecturer in Music, Royal Holloway, University of London.

This performance revives the rarely heard 1725 version of Bach’s St John Passion, performed at the Festival in 2000.

This light-hearted programme explores the perennial battle to please the senses in which good food and good music go hand in hand. These fascinating glimpses of eating and drinking habits build up a vivid picture of daily life in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

The first half of the programme consists of a complete concert performance of John Blow’s miniature masque-like opera Venus & Adonis. There will be some light-hearted items by Purcell, Dibdin, and Leopold Mozart, contrasted with works by Stanley, Handel and Arne.