Event Information

• Thu

  15

  Aug

  2019

  Passacaglia with Gillian Keith

  7.30pm

  Church Stretton Arts Festival

  Church Stretton School, Shropshire

  Music ‘A la mode’: Entertainments for an English Gentleman

  The eighteenth century saw a rapid rise in ‘genteel’ music-making in England, fuelled both by an easy availability of sheet music and a new fashion for amateur instrument playing. Popular arias from London’s opera houses and pleasure gardens were eagerly re-created in the domestic setting, whilst the larger country houses could play host to some of the famous musicians of the day. Passacaglia’s programme includes small-scale music by both native and ‘adopted’ English composers (including Arne, Handel and Geminiani), together with a helping of music in the highly fashionable Scottish folk style.