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Recognise that tune?

Lasting about 150 years from 1600 onwards. the baroque period was a time of huge development of musical forms such as opera, cantata, oratorio and concerto. This concert features some of the giants of that movement with snippets of music that you will find surprisingly familiar.

The little known Anthem on the Peace by George Frideric Handel is full of melodies that were recycled from his most famous oratorio, Messiah, composed eight years earlier.

The Te Deum by Marc-Antoine Charpentier was written in 1692 but still gets an annual airing when its prelude is played as the theme music preceding the Eurovision network broadcasts, including most notably the Eurovision Song Contest.

Older audience members will no doubt recognise the second movement of Bach’s Suite No3 in D major and they may even be tempted to light up a Hamlet cigar were it not for the fact that smoking in public buildings and the advertisement that brought this piece widespread recognition have both been subsequently banned.

Many are familiar with Magnificat by Johann Sebastian Bach, but this concert gives the opportunity to hear how his most famous son treated the same text. It was Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s first major choral composition, written in 1749 and first performed in Berlin where he was a harpsichordist at the court of Frederick the Great.