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

ABOUT:
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 Handel’s Messiah, whose opening section centres on the prophecy and birth of Christ, making it one of the defining sounds of the Christmas repertoire. Corelli’s Christmas Concerto, written “for the night of Christmas”, and Torelli’s 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 Vivaldi’s The 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.

Description

The Cathedral Church of St Peter and St Wilfrid, commonly known as Ripon Cathedral, is a cathedral in the North Yorkshire city of Ripon. Founded as a monastery by Scottish monks in the 660s, it was refounded as a Benedictine monastery by St Wilfrid in 672.

Ripon Cathedral is a beautiful, ancient church with a history reaching back to the 7th Century. It is a mother church for the Diocese of Leeds and home for the cathedra (throne) of the Bishop of Leeds. The Cathedral is an active, living Church with a community of Christians who seek to make worship a priority for life and to reach out in service to the wider community. We enjoy welcoming both pilgrims and tourists, hoping that they will capture a glimpse of God’s love for them through the witness of this remarkable building and its people. We look forward to welcoming you.