Event details

Festival Baroque Australia presents their Second Festival of Baroque Music, featuring four outstanding concerts over four days. This will be an unprecedented opportunity to hear an array of familiar and unfamiliar Baroque music, played as it was originally heard.

HITS OF THE BAROQUE
Thursday 25th August
7.30pm
The opening concert will present a variety of Baroque
favourites by Bach, Handel, Vivaldi and Pachelbel
performed on historical instruments at Baroque pitch.
It will include some of the best loved works of classical
music from the Baroque era: Pachelbel’s canon, Vivaldi’s
Four Seasons, Bach’s Sheep may safely graze, are just
a sample of these Baroque delights. The musicians
will include Sara Macliver, Fiona Campbell, Paul Wright,
Lucinda Moon, Alice Evans, Stewart Smith and the
Festival Baroque Ensemble.

BAROQUE CANTATAS -
HANDEL’S RIVALS
Friday 26th August
7.30pm
In 18th century London, German born composer George
Frideric Handel reigned supreme - or so we think today.
In his day however there were a number of signifi cant
composers whose work is hardly known, and whom we
tend to think of collectively as Handel’s rivals. Yet many
of these men produced work of great beauty and effect,
as we are beginning to discover. In this concert we will
hear chamber cantatas composed by such forgotten
luminaries as Giovanni Bononcini, Nicola Porpora and
Adolf Hasse, sung by Sara Macliver.

IMENEO
Saturday 27th August
7.30pm
Handel in his day was most famous for his operas, of
which he composed some 40. After his death, they
fell out of the repertoire and were overlooked until
the twentieth century. Many of them – Julius Caesar,
Alcina, Xerxes – are now a regular part of the repertoire
of modern opera companies. Imeneo is Handel’s
second last Italian opera, fi rst performed in 1740. It is
a tightly constructed love story, in which the heroine
, Rosmene, is torn between her romantic feelings for
Tirinto, and her sense of duty towards Imeneo.

BACH AND BUXTEHUDE
Sunday 28th August
5.00pm
For many, Bach is the ultimate Baroque composer,
particularly for his sacred music. In 1705, the young
Bach walked over 300 miles to hear Dietrich Buxtehude
play the organ in Lübeck. Although barely known today,
Buxtehude was one of the greatest Baroque north
German composers, not only for the organ, but also
for the voice. In this concert we will hear a selection
of his cantatas, as well as music by JS Bach, sung and
played by Jane Sheldon,Daniel Yeadon and Neal Peres