Handel’s dramatic and sensuous motet ‘Silete venti’ is one of his greatest pieces of Latin sacred music. In this concert it is contrasted with music by Handel’s English contemporaries, including string concertos by John Stanley and William Boyce, a bassoon concerto by John Humphries and an oboe concerto by the great Italian oboist Giuseppe Sammartini. The concert also includes the first modern performance of the orchestral version of Thomas Arne’s witty cantata Cymon and Iphigenia.

In this concert, a complete performance of Messiah Part I is contrasted with works inspired by Messiah, including the striking anthem ‘The people that walked in darkness’ (1790) by John Hill of Rugby and the delightful ‘How beauteous are their feet’ (1817) by William Matthews of Nottingham. The concert concludes with a rare performance of Handel’s anthem ‘How beautiful are the feet’, which incorporates reworked versions of several movements from Messiah.

L’Amfiparnaso (‘The Twin Peaks of Mount Parnassus’ – that is, the union of music and comedy) is the best-known and greatest madrigal comedy of the Italian Renaissance. In this highly dramatic performance, Vecchi’s comedy is contrasted with serious madrigals of love, passion and despair by Claudio Monteverdi and his great English contemporary Thomas Tomkins.

This concert brings together three major works that reveal his musical preoccupations. His remarkable Symphony in Bb (1802) is the only English symphony that can stand comparison with Haydn’s London symphonies, while the delightful ‘Ave maris stella’ (1786) is scored for two sopranos and strings. Wesley thought the ‘Confitebor tibi Domine’ (1799), a setting of Psalm 110, his finest work.