With the unique combination of string orchestra, trumpet and soprano, Amsterdam Sinfonietta presents a multifaceted Christmas programme with Bernhard Krol’s Magnificat Variations at its heart.
The Swedish trumpeter Håkan Hardenberger and soprano Johanna Wallroth are the soloists in Händel’s Eternal Source of Light Divine, written in honour of Queen Anne’s birthday. The text expresses a spiritual sense of gratitude, which is mirrored in Beethoven’s Heiliger Dankgesang. However, Beethoven’s circumstances were very different: he wrote his fifteenth string quartet shortly after his recovery from a severe infection. Gratitude also resonates in Finzi’s ‘Salutation’from his five-movement Christmas Cantata, composed to a text by the English theologian and poet Thomas Traherne.