Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment - 1700s London and the Fab Four

Johann Christian Bach: Symphony in G minor, Op.6 No.6
Carl Friedrich Abel: Aria, Frena le belle lagrime (Sifari)
Johann Christian Bach: Sextet in C for oboe, 2 horns, violin, cello & harpsichord
Interval
Carl Friedrich Abel: Trio Sonata, Op.9 No.1
Thomas Arne: The soldier tir'd at war's alarms (Artaxerxes)
Joseph Haydn: Symphony No.49 (La passione)

Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
Rachel Podger director, violin
Rachel Nicholls soprano

Music by the first Fab Four - JC Bach, Abel, Arne and Haydn - performed by the unique Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

London's status as one of the world's musical capitals is nothing new, indeed if you lived there in the 1700s it seems you could barely move without bumping into a composer.

This programme features four composers active in London in the mid-1700s. Thomas Arne, composer of 'Rule Britannia', is represented by an aria from Artaxerxes, a real blockbuster of an opera. There is music from JS Bach's son, JC Bach and the evening is rounded off with the concentrated emotion of Haydn's La Passione Symphony.