Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra

It’s easy to forget now, when the music seems so familiar, that composers throughout history have been innovators, producing music that startled, confounded and even shocked audiences of their day. So it’s entirely natural that one of the key “disruptors” of 21st century classical music, Mason Bates, rubs shoulders with Franz Biber, Georg Muffat, and Johann Heinrich Schmelzer in this program. Known for his compositions which bring together the worlds of orchestral music and electronics, Mason’s new work for us is sure to be an unmissable opener to these concerts. Muffat shared Mason’s love of combining unlikely bedfellows, known for contrasting national musical styles. In these season-closing concerts we hear his celebratory and rarely performed Mass, together with the rich and multi-layered Sonatas by Biber and a wrenching lament for strings and continuo by Schmelzer.