Fireworks from Bach and Handel by Bach, J. S., Händel, Dum 13 Oct. 2024, De la (2024/2024), Dirijor Leonardo García Alarcón, Het Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands

The Concertgebouw Orchestra takes flight in Baroque music when Leonardo García Alarcón is conducting. After his impressive first appearance in 2022, the charismatic Argentine conductor returns, weaving works by Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks into a festive whole, just as Bach himself would do on Friday evenings at Leipzig’s Café Zimmermann. Andreas Wolf’s rich, round bass is heard in a number of phenomenal arias from the secular cantatas (chamber operas) which Bach wrote in the same period. To celebrate the signing of the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, King George II organised a massive fireworks display. Despite it all going up in flames and the crowds fleeing, Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks, written for the occasion, was an instant success and even saved the monarch’s reputation. Still very popular to this day, particularly for its well-loved second movement – the peaceful Air for strings – is Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 3. Pure bliss!