The Thames Consort: works by Bach, Handel and Marcello

The Thames Consort brings the season to a close with a concert of baroque choral and instrumental music.

Bach’s cantata BWV 37 was composed in 1724 for performance on Ascension Day: the orchestral scoring uses two oboes d’amore, strings and continuo.

Handel’s Dixit Dominus was completed in April 1707 while he was living in Italy; it is the first of his great church works, a brilliant and virtuosic setting of the Latin text of Psalm 110, demonstrating his mastery of counterpoint, invention and of powerful dramatic gesture.

Alessandro Marcello, a Venetian nobleman and a contemporary of Antonio Vivaldi, composed only a handful of works: the best-known of these is this concerto for oboe, strings and continuo.