Dunedin Consort & Players are delighted, in co-operation with Bach Network UK and Edinburgh University, to announce that we are able to offer tickets for a special Reception, Concert and Dinner on Saturday 13th August at the commencement of the Edinburgh International Festival.

 

The event features as speaker Sir John Eliot Gardiner, who led the historic Bach Cantata Pilgrimage which performed all 195 sacred Cantatas in 1999-2000 and has been a leading figure on the Baroque music scene for over three decades.

 

Following a Reception (beginning at 7.00 p.m.) generously sponsored by the German Consul General, John Butt and members of the Dunedin Consort will  (c.7.45) play Bach's rarely performed but delightful birthday Serenade for  Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen. This piece (BWV173a) was designed for a throne room prior to a banquet, and will be set in the magnificent surroundings of the Playfair Library and Talbot Rice Gallery of Edinburgh University, North Bridge. The short concert of this eight movement Cantata is uniquely structured around dance movements and features Bach's earliest setting for transverse flute as well as amazing writing for the bassoon. It is a forerunner of the famous dance-based orchestral Suites (BWV 1066-9).