English Baroque Soloists / Monteverdi Choir / Sir John Eliot Gardiner

• Classical Music

Once a pioneer, today an icon of historic performing practice: conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner. With his Monteverdi Choir, which celebrates its 60th anniversary this year and is one of the world’s leading choirs, the musicians’ speciality in the run-up to Christmas is performing the most beautiful Baroque music in authentic period sound.
Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s »Messe de Minuit» follows the country’s tradition of celebrating the good news with verve and great cheerfulness in the shape of ten old French Christmas carols. Gardiner and his ensembles return to their core repertoire with the two Bach cantatas that follow, composed for the Christmas season in Leipzig’s Thomaskirche. Together they have performed all 200 or so of the Baroque master’s cantatas in the space of a year – nothing if not a mammoth project!

Of course the English Baroque Soloists, Gardiner’s instrumental ensemble, will be on hand to complete the line-up on period instruments. Notorious for his quest for perfection and his tireless search for the ideal sound, the legendary conductor celebrates the joyful anticipation of Christmas on the third weekend of Advent.

PERFORMERS

English Baroque Soloists orchestra

Monteverdi Choir choir

Sir John Eliot Gardiner conductor

PROGRAM

Marc-Antoine Charpentier
Messe de minuit à 4 voix, flûtes et violons, pour Noël

Johann Sebastian Bach
Schwingt freudig euch empor, BWV 36c

- Interval -

Johann Sebastian Bach
Unser Mund sei voll Lachens, BWV 110