MONTEVERDI CHOIR BRINGS BAROQUE BRILLIANCE TO LONDON’S NEWEST CULTURAL LANDMARK
Monteverdi Choir & English Baroque Soloist with Jonathan Sells in the Chapel of St Peter and St Paul, Greenwich C. Paul Marc Mitchell
The Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists give their first-ever performance in the newly restored Great Hall of the North Wing of St Bartholomew’s Hospital on Wednesday 12 November – marking both a milestone in London’s cultural calendar and the welcome reopening of one of the city’s most magnificent historic interiors.
The concert celebrates an 18th-century architectural gem newly reopened to the public following a £9.5 million restoration project. Built in 1734, the Hall has been meticulously conserved to reveal its full splendour, complete with the dramatic Hogarth Stair and murals by William Hogarth that capture the grandeur of the Baroque age.
Audiences will experience the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists performing works by JS Bach, Purcell, and Handel in a setting that perfectly mirrors the music’s opulence and vitality. The pairing of music and architecture will draw them into the Baroque world as the composers themselves might have known it.
When the North Wing was completed in 1734, J.S. Bach was at the peak of his powers in Leipzig. From around this time come the two miniature masterpieces featured in this concert: Der Geist hilft (1729) and Singet dem Herrn (1727), with its fitting spirit of renewal.
The greatest composer in England at the time was George Frideric Handel. He was a friend of William Hogarth, whose paintings of The Good Samaritan and The Pool of Bethesda adorn the grand staircase to the hall. Handel’s Dixit Dominus, which ends the concert, is no less ambitious: a musical tour-de-force full of virtuosic vocal and instrumental writing.
A generation earlier Henry Purcell was the leading light of English music. He had close connections to this area of London, and in particular to the Charterhouse – just the other side of Smithfield Market. His eight-part anthem, Hear my prayer, composed for the choir of Westminster Abbey, opens the concert.
This new partnership with St Bart’s builds on the Monteverdi Choir & Orchestra’s mission to bring fresh perspectives, immediacy and drama to historically informed performance. Performing in historic spaces such as its London home, St Martin-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square, and in the magnificent Chapel of St Peter and St Paul in the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich, where they also perform regularly, is a crucial part of this.
“Stunning heritage locations bring the music of the past to life in such a special way,” says Rosa Solinas, General Director of the Monteverdi Choir & Orchestras of performing in the Great Hall of St Bart’s. “We are thrilled to open this new chapter for London audiences in one of the city’s most extraordinary historic settings and privileged to celebrate the renovation and re-opening of the magnificent North Wing at St Bartholomew’s Hospital with a programme that reflects the historical context of this spectacular space.”
Tickets and information available HERE.