Double Baroque Feast

Spiccato Strings and the piano duo Sóley share a stage for the first time, on a Sunday afternoon built around two double concertos. Spiccato is a string orchestra founded in 2012 that plays without a conductor and passes the solo parts among its own members; Sóley is Laufey Sigrún Haraldsdóttir and Sólborg Valdimarsdóttir at two grand pianos, together since 2019. Bach's Concerto in C minor for two keyboards, BWV 1060, is thought to have begun as a concerto for violin and oboe, and nobody knows of its being played in Iceland on two keyboards before. Vivaldi's Concerto for Two Violins in A minor, RV 522, comes from the twelve concertos he published in 1711, a set that reached composers across Europe, Bach among them. Each ensemble also plays on its own, and the programme includes Händel's Arrival of the Queen of Sheba, two pieces by Gluck, Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring and the Air from Bach's third Orchestral Suite.