#handel

#handel

The Irish Baroque Orchestra and their conductor Peter Whelan bring Messiah back to Dublin, the city of its 1742 premiere, attempting to recreate the version heard at its first performance.

The sheet is modest in size but immense in significance. Carefully inked across the page are the opening 20 bars of a fugue - not Mozart's own invention, but his transcription of a harpsichord work by George Frideric Handel, composed more than sixty years earlier. Mozart was 26 when he set to work on it in 1782-83, transforming Handel's keyboard fugue into the beginnings of a string quartet arrangement.

Handel's Rodelinda is one of the Baroque era's most emotionally compelling operas, showcasing a world where courage and constancy triumph over tyranny.

Kosky's revival of Handel's Saul is an engrossing representation of a king's descent, exploring moral dilemmas that resonate with contemporary audiences.