Fiori Musicali have a residency at Canons Ashby which saw them perform at the National Trust several times last week. Every performance there is special but it was even more so this week as it was to celebrate the opening of the newly restored baroque gardens and to commemorate 300 years of baroque composer Corelli.
Did you catch '2Day' on Friday? Radio 2 mixed things up for the day, changing the scheduling to showcase the variety of music played by the station with this year's focus on the 'Orchestra'. Each programme looked at the groups of instruments in an orchestra throughout the day.
I liked that I was learning as well as enjoying a brilliant mix of music. For example did you know that an orchestra does not include a saxophone?
Handel is one of the giants of the baroque. But I don't know much about him. Now, we can't be having that can we especially around Christmas when his famous work Messiah is prominent? So I asked Penelope Rapson, Director of Fiori Musicali, what she knows about the composer. It might be easier to ask what she doesn't know but here's what she told me.
Who doesn't love Bonfire night?
Forgetting the allegations of torture and the whole Gunpowder Plot (basically everything associated with it), I love Bonfire Night. It reminds me of the firework displays I went to as a child, wrapped up in at least 100 layers, whooshing my sparkler around to spell my name with the light, the smell of hotdogs and the sound of classical music drifting through the crisp cold air to stir the senses.
It's not often that you hear of a classical music concert likened to the mudfest that is Glastonbury but that's just what you can expect from Fiori Musicali's midsummer concert at Wolfhampcote. Obviously just without the mud and rain!
