Masterworks: Vivaldi, Handel, Whitacre and Shaw

Join us for an intimate performance of two beloved and two lesser-known but no less wonderful choral works, together with our friends the Ariana string quartet and Daniel Bath on keyboard, with solos from members of the choir.

Vivaldi: Gloria

Handel: Dixit Dominus

Whitacre: Leonardo Dreams of his Flying Machine

Shaw: And the Swallow

Vivaldi’s Gloria is an uplifting and vibrant setting in 12 short movements of the Gloria in Excelsis Deo hymn from the traditional text of the Latin mass. Another setting of a religious text, Dixit Dominus is a setting of Psalm 110 with music of exceptional brilliance composed by Handel in 1707 when he was just 22 and living in Rome.

In contrast, Caroline Shaw’s And the Swallow, a setting of psalm 84, was written in 2017 and evokes a yearning for home. Linking the idea of flight and Italy we will be opening the programme with Eric Whitacre’s Leonardo Dreams of his Flying Machine, which takes us on a thrilling trip inside Leonardo da Vinci’s dreams of flying.