Leonardo García Alarcón conducts the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Bach and Handel

Phenomenal arias from the secular cantatas

Leonardo García Alarcón gives the Concertgebouw Orchestra wings in baroque music. After his impressive debut in 2022, the charismatic Argentinian returns. He weaves works by Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Friedrich Händel's Music for the Royal Fireworks into a festive whole, just as Bach himself did on Friday evenings in Café Zimmermann in Leipzig. Andreas Wolf sings with his warm, round bass voice a number of phenomenal arias from the secular cantatas (chamber operas) that Bach wrote in the same period.

Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks

To celebrate the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, King George II organized a grand fireworks display. The whole thing went up in flames, and the crowd fled, but Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks, written especially for the occasion, was an instant hit and saved the king's reputation. Bach's Third Orchestral Suite is also still popular, especially for its famous second movement, the peaceful Air for Strings.