Dixit Dominus is a showpiece for both singers and players alike, and whilst its unremitting energy and dramatic intensity presents all the musicians with considerable challenges, the demands that Handel makes on the choir are extremely testing, and seldom equalled in his later works. The piece is an extraordinary tour-de-force, particularly for a 22-year-old composer, and demonstrates Handel’s precocious mastery of counterpoint, of harmonic and melodic invention and, perhaps most impressively, of powerful dramatic gesture. Not surprisingly, Dixit Dominus is regarded as one of his finest works.

Mozart’s rarely performed Venite Populi was written when Mozart was a teenager in Salzburg. The text is anonymous and, unusually for Mozart, is for double chorus. It was first published in 1872 in an edition by Johannes Brahms, and performed at the unveiling of Mozart’s statue in Mozartplatz, Salzburg in the presence of his two sons.

Also in this concert, two of Mozart Epistle Sonatas, and Handel’s famous Arrival of the Queen of Sheba.