New Worlds | Exile

Exile, elegance and adventure: Laurence Cummings and the AAM follow Joseph Haydn to 18th century London, in a concert of thrilling emotional extremes.

When Haydn arrived in London in 1791, he triggered a full-scale Georgian media frenzy – and responded with some of his most enduring and imaginative music. This new world offered him fortune as well as fame, and today Laurence Cummings demonstrates why, in a concert that explores the full, glorious range of one of music’s first global superstars.

That means a tempestuous overture from an opera set on a desert island, and a rare performance of the Sinfonia Concertante, in which four of the AAM’s own stars take the spotlight in a witty quadruple concerto, written to delight a fashionable crowd. And at the heart of it all, two extraordinary, impassioned mini-operas. Abandoned and alone, the heartbroken Ariadne cries to the heavens. Berenice contemplates the death of her beloved – and resolves to share his fate. These two cantatas were enormous hits with the London audience, and today you’ll hear why.