Les Musiciens du Louvre, one of the world’s most acclaimed ensembles, returns to L’Auditori de Barcelona to perform excerpts of sacred works by Handel, sung by the renowned soprano Emöke Baráth and conducted by Francesco Corti.

Francesco Corti and Emöke Baráth, two of the most highly acclaimed performers from the new generations of musicians specialising in Early Music and the Classical period, are coming to Barcelona under the patronage of the orchestra founded and conducted by Marc Minkowski.

The concert being staged on Tuesday, 16 February in L’Auditori de Barcelona’s Hall 1, Pau Casals is a unique opportunity to discover some of George Frideric Handel’s lesser-known sacred works. One of these is the magnificent oratorio Joseph and his Brethren HWV 59, a piece that uses the complex and outlandish physical and spiritual life of Joseph (the patriarch) to provide everything you could possibly want and more: jealousy, melancholy, disappointment, violence and Egyptian prisons. A selection of works will be performed.

You will also be able to hear excerpts from Theodora HWV 68, a better known oratorio that tells the story of this Christian martyr and her lover, the Roman convert Didymus.

The show will conclude with a full performance of the motet Silete Venti HWV 242, written for solo soprano, of whom a great deal of virtuosity and expressiveness will be required. It can almost be described as a monodrama of resonances between the oratorio and opera forms, with arias, recitatives, fugues, storms, pastorals and more, and ending with a fiery and purposeful Hallelujah “in typical Handel style”.