Kit Armstrong: Keyboard Music Chronicles 1620–1720 Contrast

Few artists would undertake such an ambitious project as Kit Armstrong's survey of keyboard music across the centuries – a pianistic tour-de-force and a compelling demonstration of Armstrong's intellect and musicological curiosity. In this concert he explores the many contrasts in styles between different national schools – as well as the crosscurrents between them – during the Baroque period. J. S. Bach is represented at first by his Lutheran Choral Preludes and then by his brilliant Vivaldi transcription BWV 980 and Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue. In between comes Handel's celebrated Fifth Suite as well as works by English and French composers. An encore by C. P. E. Bach, meanwhile, looks forward to the next concert in the series.