Seated musician playing a keyboard instrument with music.

19 Sep

Handel and Bach

King George I commissioned George Frideric Handel's Water Music for an outdoor party on the River Thames, and enjoyed it so much he told the musicians to play it over and over again. It still fits the bill for a delightful occasion some three centuries on.

Kristian Bezuidenhout, an Australian keyboard player and early music specialist now based in London. will play his own harpsichord arrangement of a piece from JS Bach’s The Art of Fugue. Listen out for two more of Bach’s pieces on this program, alongside Handel’s stately Concerto Grosso and richly coloured overture to the opera Admeto.