"The Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century and Cappella Amsterdam under Daniel Reuss [...] a testament to choral culture at its very best."

**** NRC

Every other year, the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century and Cappella Amsterdam join forces for a Passion by Johann Sebastian Bach. This year, orchestra and choir are again under the direction of conductor Daniel Reuss. With soloists from the international top: Marianne Beate Kieland, Peter Harvey, Thomas Walker and Berit Norbakken, you can expect nothing less than a sublime performance of Bach's masterpiece.

The Netherlands' fascination with J.S. Bach's Passions is an international phenomenon. Nowhere in the world are so much magnificent music performed in so little square mileage in so little time. The Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century and Cappella have been among the absolute top performers for years.

We write 1807: a year full of wars and violence in Europe. The map has never been so changeable. At the same time, during a musical salon in Vienna, three new compositions see the light of day. Before a small audience, Ludwig van Beethoven performs for the first time his fourth piano concerto, his fourth symphony and the Coriolanus Overture. In 2026, more than 200 years later, the works still sound as vibrant as they did then in Vienna. Just as imposing, moving and exciting as when it was first heard.

The dramatic overture and the light-footed symphony stand shoulder to shoulder alongside one of the most popular and well-known piano concertos. A review from the early nineteenth century called it "the most admirable, peculiarly artistic and complex concerto [...] that Beethoven ever produced."

The Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century is one of the world's leading specialized ensembles in the music of Beethoven, with roots dating back to its iconic performances with Frans Brüggen in the 1980s and 1990s. Now a new generation of top players from across Europe brings this repertoire to life, joined for this program by pianist Olga Pashchenko, rising star in the piano world. The orchestra is conducted from the first violin by concertmaster Alexander Janiczek.

"The expressive power that Janiczek exuded in his violin playing gave enormous élan to the ensemble playing. The ferocity with which the bows were deposited on the strings and the sharply profiled rhythm gave.....the heroic and, above all, revolutionary feeling that Beethoven put into his notes. I don't recall the orchestra in past performances penetrating so deeply into Beethoven's emotionality."

The New Muse, Beethoven Festival 2023.

In this concert, the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century pays tribute to the forgotten composer Marianna Martines. Together with soprano Elisabeth Hetherington (winner of the Dutch Music Prize 2024) and directed by Peter Leung, they tell the story of this multi-talented woman from Vienna.

As a young girl, Marianna Martines shared a home with the struggling composer Joseph Haydn and the flamboyant poet and librettist Pietro Metastasio. As a woman, she fascinated royalty and audiences alike with her expressive voice, virtuosic harpsichord playing and fiery compositions. Later, as a teacher, she founded a singing school for girls, shaping the voices of Vienna's finest 18th-century artists.

After her death, her name slowly fell into oblivion.

More than 200 years late, O18c and Elisabeth Hetherington are bringing her back to life on stage. At the center are two of her finest works, "La Tempeste" and "Berenice, ah che fai. Around these, the orchestra folds music by her contemporary Haydn, and a completely new composition by Kate Moore.

Martines' story is not one of oblivion; it is one of resilience, triumph and unwavering character.

This season, for the first time, the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century stands shoulder to shoulder with the Flemish Radio Choir. Conductor Bart van Reyn leads the orchestra and choir in iconic repertoire by the greatest composers: Mozart's Mass in c minor is his most popular choral work after the Requiem, and not without reason. Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is so famous that it is one of the few classical works we can point to with just the numeral. Two world-famous pieces in c minor in one concert.

And as it often goes with over-familiar works, after a while we as lovers, listeners and musicians tend to take things for granted. 'Again' Beethoven 5; But just as cliches are sometimes cliche for a reason, iconic repertoire is certainly iconic for a reason. This music, the emotion and energy in it, is second to none.

"The most sublime noise that has ever penetrated into the ear of man" wrote E.M Forster about Beethoven's Fifth, but this could just as easily have applied to the Mass in c minor. The Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century and the Flemish Radio Choir will let you hear just how "sublime" it really is.