In a program focusing on music through the ages, the musicians of Amsterdam Sinfonietta let their string instruments sound to the fullest in works by Edwin Elgar, Johann Sebastian Bach and Antonio Vivaldi’s famous Four Seasons.

Elgar’s Serenade for Strings opens the evening with a tender, expressive sound world in which the first outlines of his later masterpieces can already be heard. Bach’s Brandenburg Concert No. 3 is a unique work within the six famous Brandenburg Concertos, composed around 1721. This work lacks the soloist: Bach wrote the piece for a striking scoring of three violins, three violas, three cellos and basso continuo – a wondrous 3×3 structure reminiscent of a modern composer rather than a Baroque master.

Vivaldi shows his mastery in The Four Seasons: even in his day, this widely loved classical work was hugely popular. It revolutionized the musical imagination, evoking images of babbling brooks, singing birds, a barking dog, buzzing flies, storms, drunken dancers, frozen landscapes and a crackling winter fire.

Edward Elgar (1857-1934)
Serenade

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Brandenburgs Concert nr. 3 in G

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
De vier jaargetijden

direction and violin: Candida Thompson