A showcase presentation of our prizewinning Charles Burney programme.
In the years 1770 and 1772 Burney undertakes two long journeys through Europe with the aim of collecting material for his planned “General History of Music”.
From carnival in Venice to French ballet, lullaby music at the German court and folk songs in the taverns of England - he follows the music everywhere and meets composers and musicians in eight different countries.
This programme is a Baroque musical voyage following Burney on his journey: a kaleidoscope of European Baroque music with compositions from each of the countries he visited, interspersed with readings of his original 18th century diary entries.
The programme includes seldomly heard pieces by Austrian composer Johann Heinrich Schmelzer and Czech composer Frantisek Tuma, a new arrangement of the folk song "Kraut und Rüben" based on Dietrich Buxtehude's "La Capricciosa" and Bach’s Goldberg variation “Quodlibet”, music from one of Georg Philipp Telemann’s operas (yes, Telemann also wrote opera!) and a Cantata written by Charles Burney himself called "The despairing shepherd", which appears as a world premiere recording on our debut CD due to be released this October.