Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment: The Four Seasons

Baroque’s best-loved masterpiece from one of the world’s great period orchestras

Programme: 
VIVALDI Selection of concertos from ‘L’estro armonico’ Op 3
VIVALDI The Four Seasons

An all-Vivaldi programme that features the timeless The Four Seasons and sparkling concertos to celebrate forty inspiring years of making music by the OAE. In the groundbreaking The Four Seasons, Vivaldi brings the natural world vividly to life: the birdsong of spring, sudden summer storms, the abundance of autumn’s harvest, and the biting frost of winter. 

The programme opens with four vibrant concertos drawn from the composer’s extraordinary output, including selections from L’estro armonico, the publication that set early 18th-century Europe alight. 

An evening of virtuosity and elegance, brilliant in every detail.

About the OAE 

In 1986, a group of inquisitive London musicians took a long hard look at that curious institution we call the Orchestra, and decided to start again from scratch. They began by throwing out the rulebook. Put a single conductor in charge? No way. Specialise in repertoire of a particular era? Too restricting. Perfect a work and then move on? Too lazy. The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment was born.  And as this distinctive ensemble playing on period-specific instruments began to get a foothold, it made a promise to itself. It vowed to keep questioning, adapting and inventing as long as it lived. Residencies at the Southbank Centre and the Glyndebourne Festival didn’t numb its experimentalist bent. Record deals didn’t iron out its quirks. Instead, the OAE examined musical notes with ever more freedom and resolve.

That creative thirst remains unquenched. The Night Shift series of informal performances taking place in pubs and bars redefines concert formats. Its association with another London venue, Kings Place, has fostered further diversity of music-making including the innovative series Bach, the Universe and Everything.