The Sixteen play Handel, Cadogan Hall

Since being founded by conductor Harry Christophers and a group of friends in 1979, The Sixteen choir and orchestra have become one of the world’s greatest early music ensembles. Their hundred or so recordings include many of the definite renditions of the repertoire. This February, they will return to Chelsea’s Cadogan Hall for an evening of Georg Friedrich Handel, the baroque genius. Book soon – The Sixteen’s concerts have a propensity to sell out early.
The evening includes five pieces from the whole span of the composer’s versatile career. It begins with the delightful Arrival of the Queen of Sheba from Solomon (1948), one of his best-known instrumental works. The choir will then enter for the colossal Chandos Anthem No. 11 (1717-18), which matches the first piece’s instrumental delicacy with buoyant vocals. The equally joyous but smaller scale Coronation Anthem No. 2 (1727) follows, along with the Overture from Jephtha (1751), a broodingly intense affair composed as Handel was going blind. The evening closes with the early but fascinatingly complex Dixit Dominus (1707), a fitting end to an evening of eighteenth century majesty.