Powerful performances from The English Concert at the Wigmore Hall

Works written for performance in Hanover, Rome and London featured in this all-Handel programme given by the English Concert.  The evening’s second half was taken up by Dixit Dominus, dating…

The English Concert celebrate Saffron Hall’s 10th anniversary with a superb Rodelinda

Not many concert venues double up as school assembly halls.  Actually, that statement does a double disservice: first, to Saffron Hall, which opened on the site of Saffron Walden County…

Handel’s Clori, Tirsi e Fileno: The English Concert at Wigmore Hall

Clori, Tirsi e Fileno is one of Handel’s many ‘dramatic cantatas’, composed during his Italian sojourn of 1706-10 and performed in the private homes and palaces of wealthy patrons, to…

The English Concert at Wigmore Hall: Purcell and Blow

Harry Bicket assembled the ‘Dream Team’ for this English Concert programme of music by Henry Purcell and John Blow.  Seven internationally renowned singers were joined by new-kid-on-the-block, countertenor Hugh Cutting,…

Prom 43: Handel’s Solomon

Some of Handel’s oratorios aspire to theatre; some have had theatre thrust upon them.  Solomon has neither sustained drama nor a coherent narrative, but it does have some fantastic music…

The English Concert perform Samson at the London Handel Festival

Handel’s dramatic talents as a composer ran to the expansive, in a way that Handel the promoter found tricky so that many of his works were trimmed and edited for…

Handel’s London Altos: Iestyn Davies at Kings Place

At Kings Place it’s currently half-portions and double-helpings: to ‘get round’ the 50% capacity restrictions, the answer is simply to perform the concert twice – and Iestyn Davies and the…