Southern eccentricity versus Nordic piety
Vivaldi versus Händel – southern eccentricity versus Nordic piety, playful Italian virtuosity versus strict German counterpoint. Or not? It’s not that simple. In a programme of fascinating contrasts and surprising connections, you will discover what the two composers have in common, and what distinguishes them.
The music of world citizen Händel unites all the characteristics of the major European music movements, not least the Italian: with his opera Agrippina, Händel even managed to take Vivaldi’s home base of Venice by surprise. And if Vivaldi was the inventor of the violin concerto, Händel holds that title for polyphonic instruments, the organ and the harpsichord in particular. And the harp: in the hymn of praise Alexander’s Feast, a brilliant ode to music, Händel was the first ever to assign a lead role in a great concerto to the harp. The work places enormous technical demands on the performer, making it the perfect counterpart to Vivaldi’s virtuoso violin concertos. Russian grandmaster Dmitry Sinkovsky takes on the extremely difficult scores, taking B’Rock in tow through light-footed symphonies.