Haydn, Vivaldi and Handel for your delight!

If the vivid contrasts of Vivaldi's Gloria - by turns sparkling and tenderly lyrical - cannot draw you to this concert, how about the weightier Missa in Angustiis' (Mass in Troubled Times) by Joseph Haydn? Composed in 1797-98, during an anxious period of the Napoleonic Wars when Haydn and his Austrian compatriots feared defeat by Napoleon's forces, the mass became forever linked with Admiral Lord Nelson following his victory at the Battle of the Nile in 1798. Beginning with the menace of war, Haydn's mass ends with a joyful anticipation of victory and peace. Handel's delightful Oboe Concerto completes this varied programme.