CANCELLED: La Cetra Barockorchester Basel / Maurice Steger

The English newspaper »Independent« once referred to Maurice Steger as »one of the world’s leading recorder players«, while other media have called him »the Paganini of the recorder«. And it must be said that his brilliant playing is nothing short of amazing and truly touching. »Mr Handel’s Dinner« is Steger’s personal tribute to the great Baroque composer, and it’s a tribute with a difference – a kind of reconstructed interval concert of the kind given to accompany the food and drink served in between the acts of the often excessively long London opera performances.

When Handel himself climbed down from the conductor’s rostrum to take his place at the banquet table, concertos and chamber music by such prominent contemporaries as Francesco Geminiani and Charles Avison were played. But Handel also played himself during the interval, as Maurice Steger and the La Cetra Baroque Orchestra of Basel show. Thus the Halle-born composer, who later settled in London, would improvise with virtuoso skill on the harpsichord, or would present a brand-new recorder sonata of his own composition. Maurice Steeger revives this tradition in the Laeiszhalle – but roast capon, Handel’s favourite dish, won’t be on the menu: you’ll have to make do with a pretzel in the Brahms Foyer.