​Chichester’s Consort of Twelve in concert

The concert is entitled The Jewels of Italy and celebrates some of the most iconic composers of 18th-century Italy. The programme begins with a dramatic Concerto Grosso for strings by Geminiani. Also returning to the Consort, Helen Hooker and Sophie Middleditch will perform an arrangement for recorders of Vivaldi’s Concerto in C major for two flutes. Helen will also play Sammartini’s virtuosic solo Recorder Concerto in F major, and Lynden Cranham will perform an unknown gem, the Sinfonia for Cello by Pergolesi.

The second half of the programme continues with Pergolesi, with a performance of his Stabat Mater, in which the vocal soloists will be Daisy Walford, soprano, and Rebecca Leggett, alto. Pergolesi died of TB at the age of 26, in 1736, and the Stabat Mater was written in the final months of his life. Although his contemporaries who feature in this concert were much longer lived and survived him further into the 18th century, the Stabat Mater and the Cello Sinfonia feel somehow more modern than the rest of the programme, as if the composer was already looking forward from the Baroque era into the Classical era, Lynden said. Tickets: £15 (adult), £5 (student), £1 (child), from Phillip and Philip Hairdressers, 7 Baffins Court, Baffins Lane, Chichester, PO19 1UA; also 02392 214494; and www.consortoftwelve.co.uk