LEAMINGTON Music Winter Season resumes with a leading string quartet and a vocal group that has performed with Sting.
Coming for its fourth visit to Leamington, the London Haydn Quartet was born out of a passion for Haydn and is one of the world’s leading period instrument string quartets.
Founded in 2000, the quartet has received invitations to many of the most important concert series throughout the world, and its recordings of the complete Haydn quartets on the Hyperion label has met with international critical acclaim.
But, while Haydn was these musicians’ original love, they have also discovered the music of his contemporaries along the way. This includes the first quartet of French composer Hyacinthe Jadin which opens the concert at the Royal Pump Rooms on Friday January 26.
This will be followed with Haydn’s evergreen Quartet in F Op 74 No 2 and then Mendelssohn’s youthful masterpiece – his Quartet No 1 in E flat Op 12.
And Stile Antico comes to St Mary’s Church in Warwick on Tuesday January 30.
The British group, which famously has a dozen voices but does not use a conductor, returns to Warwick with a new programme with an intriguing premise, entitled Dante: A Divine Hope.
Dante’s Divine Comedy is considered one of the greatest works of literature ever written and with this programme, Stile Antico descends with Il Divino into hell, journeys through purgatory, and finally arrives at the gates of heaven.
Renaissance madrigals and sacred music by composers such as Victoria, Palestrina, and Morales illustrate the way, and texts by Dante himself, set to music by Lazzaschi and Merulo, also narrate the story.
Stile Antico regularly tours to America where it has been at the Grammy Awards, and the group used to record with Sting.
Leamington Music’s artistic director Helen Beecroft said: “Welcoming old friends back brings warmth to the end of a cold month – our audiences are always delighted by the performances from these two fantastic ensembles and these concerts promise to be no different.”
For more information and tickets visit www.leamingtonmusic.org
