Vivaldi's Four Seasons at Christmas - Ripon Cathedral

Programme to include:

Handel Overture to Messiah
Corelli Christmas Concerto
Torelli Christmas Concerto
Bach Violin Concerto in A minor
Vivaldi The Four Seasons

Tonight's programme celebrates Christmas through the elegance and brilliance of the Baroque era, with a selection of beautifully crafted festive masterpieces.

Opening the programme is the overture from Handels Messiah, whose opening section centres on the prophecy and birth of Christ, making it one of the defining sounds of the Christmas repertoire. Corellis Christmas Concerto, written for the night of Christmas, and Torellis Christmas Concerto both capture the spirit of Christmas night, with music that suggests the shepherds of the Nativity and the stillness of the scene.

Completing the programme is Vivaldis Four Seasons, a dazzling set of concertos that remains one of the most famous and vivid works in all classical music. Each concerto paints a different season in sound, drawing on accompanying poems possibly written by Vivaldi himself to bring the natural world vividly to life. Across the four concertos, Vivaldi conjures birdsong and buzzing flies, harvest celebrations, barking dogs, summer storms and winter ice.