Handel and Bach

It’s the 1700s and you’re sipping a glass of champagne. Beautiful music is playing through the open air, and you listen to the instruments while cruising gently down the river with your friends. It’s a scene fit for a king, which is exactly why George Frideric Handel composed Water Music. King George I commissioned this soundtrack for an outdoor party on the River Thames, and enjoyed it so much he told the musicians to play it over and over again. It still fits the bill for a delightful occasion some three centuries on.

We’ve turned this event into a miniature Baroque festival because we’re graced with the presence of Kristian Bezuidenhout, an Australian keyboard player and early music specialist now based in London. He’ll play his own harpsichord arrangement of a piece from J.S. Bach’s The Art of Fugue. Listen out for two more of Bach’s pieces on this program, alongside Handel’s stately Concerto Grosso and richly coloured overture to the opera Admeto.

Program

J.S. Bach Suite No.1 in C major, BWV 1066

J.S. Bach (arr. Bezuidenhout) Contrapunctus XIV from The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080

Handel Overture to Admeto

Handel Concerto Grosso, Op.3, No.5 in D minor

J.S. Bach Sinfonia from Cantata, BWV 52, Falsche Welt, dir trau ich nicht

Handel Water Music: Suite No.1 & Suite No.2

Featuring

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

Kristian Bezuidenhout harpsichord

Want to learn more about the music being performed? Arrive early for an informative and entertaining pre-concert talk at 6:45pm.