Bach, Vivaldi and Handel headline the MSO’s Baroque Festival, opening with a showcase of concertos directed from the harpsichord by Erin Helyard and featuring violinist Tair Khisambeev. Soprano Samantha Clarke then joins Helyard for an evening of arias including Handel’s Lascia ch’io pianga, originally written for Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno and reused in Rinaldo. The festival concludes with a 300th-anniversary performance of Bach’s St John Passion under Stephen Layton, former Music Director at Trinity College Cambridge and founder of Polyphony.

Limelight Editor’s Choice

Wrapping up MSO’s Baroque Festival is this special 300th Anniversary performance of Bach’s oratorio of biblical proportions – St John Passion.

Lauded for his ability to amplify a work’s immediacy and drama, Stephen Layton – former Music Director at Trinity College Cambridge and founder of world-leading London consort Polyphony – conducts the orchestra for this historic concert, alongside the mighty MSO chorus and an all-star cast of soloists.

First performed on Good Friday 1724 in Leipzig’s cavernous St Nicholas Church, Bach’s intensely dramatic St John Passion narrates the Easter Passion of Christ, according to the gospel of John.

Compared to his later St Matthew Passion, the St John has a raw, uninhibited sense of tragic momentum. With spitting, bloodthirsty mobs and heartbreaking arias, this spectacular work hurtles towards the inevitable: a showcase not only of Bach’s incredible technicality, but of the immense power of musical storytelling.