We present Handel’s great masterpiece in an unfamiliar guise, recreating the work as heard in its original performance, with a small choir and period-instrument orchestra.

This popular programme brings together some of the finest chamber music from the early eighteenth century, written at a time when Italian, French and German composers were relishing and exploiting their diverse national styles. Works by Handel, Telemann, Vivaldi, Marais, Rebel and Leclair are featured.

This fascinating programme presents a vivid glimpse of domestic music-making in Shakespeare’s England. The programme includes ingenious rounds by Thomas Ravenscroft, the first folksong collector, lute songs by Thomas Campion, Nicholas Lanier and others, and instrumental solos or duos based on popular tunes, including some used by Shakespeare.

An afternoon of talks and a visit to the exhibition ‘Rembrandt the Printmaker’.

The concert is effectively a portrait of the composer, equivalent to Rembrandt’s profound series of self-portraits. The concert brings together pieces featuring passionate, virtuoso music for solo voices, those exploiting spatially separated groups, and those with unusual combinations of voices and instruments.