Thu, September 24th, 2026
Ispirazione barocca

La Cetra's 2026/27 season opens with a multifaceted instrumental program of concertos and overtures, focusing on the connections and mutual inspiration between important Baroque composers: Bach and Handel, for example, who were both born in eastern Germany in the spring of 1685, just a few weeks apart. Handel famously moved to London soon after, while Bach remained loyal to Thuringia and Saxony throughout his life. Both were familiar with each other's music, but they never met. Bach had more contact with Jan Dismas Zelenka, six years his senior, who worked in Dresden for many years – as Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach later recounted, his father and Zelenka knew and respected each other. Bach also held Zelenka's contemporary Johann Friedrich Fasch in high esteem; Fasch studied under Bach's predecessor at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, Johann Kuhnau. Both Bach and Fasch applied for Kuhnau's position as Thomaskantor. Bach, Handel, Zelenka, and Fasch share a common admiration for and inspiration from 17th- and 18th-century Italian music. And so, to conclude La Cetra's season-opening instrumental recital, Vivaldi's Concerto in B minor, RV 580 for four violins, will be performed. First published in Amsterdam in 1711, it so inspired Bach, among others, that he arranged it for four harpsichords a few years later. The season opener will be led by the two concertmasters, Katharina Heutjer and Eva Saladin, who will also perform the solo violins.

La Cetra Basel: +41 61 205 33 55
tickets@lacetra.ch

Bider & Tanner: +41 61 206 99 96
Monday to Saturday 9am–5pm