Concert Program/ Carolyn Sampson, Laurence Cummings, English Concert - Lufthansa festival 2008

From the program notes: Peace has the upper hand from the start in the Festival’s opening concert, given by one of the world’s most renowned Baroque orchestras and one of Britain’s brightest singing talents. Handel’s ‘Alexander’s Feast’ concerto was included in the oratorio of the same name, an ode to St. Cecilia set in the context of a banquet given by Alexander the Great to celebrate one of his many victories. Arias from L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato and Alceste continue the idyllic mood, before the concert ends with a suite of dances and vocal numbers from Rameau’s ‘opera for the peace’, Naïs, which, despite a thrillingly warlike overture, was commissioned in 1749 to mark the signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. Among its typically exquisite dances is a sequence depicting the sporting action of the ancient Isthmian Games.