A richly rewarding musical journey through the Christmas season with Johann Sebastian Bach, featuring Cantata 61 (with a dramatic setting of Martin Luther’s Advent chorale), Cantatas 2 & 4 of the Christmas Oratorio (featuring choirs of woodwind instruments and hunting horns) and the superb but little known Cantata 65, which uses horns, recorders, oboes da caccia and strings to depict the exotic world of the Wise Men.

Author, broadcasterand virtuoso pianist David Owen Norris presents a specially devised recital exploring the role of counterpoint in J.S. Bach’s music, and the creative ways composers from Mozart to Vaughan Williams responded to it. The programme includes a complete performance of Mendelssohn’s Six Preludes and Fugues Op. 35.

A rare chance to hear some of the grand ceremonial motets and instrumental pieces for divided choirs written by Giovanni Gabrieli for St Mark’s and other Venetian institutions around 1600. The second half of the concert celebrates Gabrieli’s influence in Germany around 1620.