Works by Monteverdi are contrasted with Christmas motets and sonatas by his colleagues and contemporaries, including Tarquinio Merula, Giovanni Antonio Rigatti, Francesco Cavalli and his German follower Heinrich Schütz. This passionate and operatic music will come as a revelation to those who only know Monteverdi’s early Vespers of 1610.

Trio Goya contrast Haydn’s late Trio no. 27 in C major and the Trio in D major by the English composer Stephen Storace (friend and pupil of Mozart) with Mozart’s Sonata in B flat major for violin and piano, K454, and Beethoven’s Variations in F major for violoncello and piano, based on an aria from Mozart’s Magic Flute.

Haydn’s Oratorio The Creation was first performed in public in Vienna in 1799. This performance marks the 200th anniversary of Haydn’s death on 31 May 1809, and is a rare opportunity to hear a historically informed account of his masterpiece with an orchestra of Classical instruments and a choir similar in size to that used for the composer’s last public appearance.