From Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons to Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s “Sturm und Drang”

Alternative Stage Founding Donor

Major Sponsor of the Greek National Opera

The successful Baroque Music Festival is returning to the Greek National Opera Alternative Stage at the SNFCC, with the theme The Age of Transitions, on 16, 20, 21, and 22 November 2025. This year’s programme, curated by versatile and highly prolific artist Dimos Goudaroulis, focuses on the captivating music of the 18th century. It highlights the significant and constant shifts in style that mark this particularly fertile period, from the late Baroque era to the full bloom of Classicism. The Festival is realized in collaboration with the Thessaloniki Concert Hall.

The Festival features four concerts that cover the entire 18th century through a diverse programme. It begins with Antonio Vivaldi’s famous Four Seasons, a piece that was released exactly three hundred years ago, in 1725; it then explores the galant style of Georg Philipp Telemann and Louis-Gabriel Guillemain’s music; next, it revisits the “Sturm und Drang” music by Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach, along with the preclassical style of Johann Christian Bach; afterward, it dives into Classicism with sophisticated works by Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; and finally, it reaches the late 18th century, showcasing Opus No. 1 by the young Ludwig van Beethoven, which heralds the dawning of a new era.

The 2025 Baroque Music Festival welcomes the Festival’s Baroque Orchestra, featuring prominent musicians from the Greek Baroque scene; the internationally acclaimed Spanish violinist Lina Tur Bonet, one of the most expressive and versatile violinists of the modern era and one of the most important and influential artists of our time; and the French cellist, gambist, and maestro Christophe Coin, who boasts a decades-long international career with a significant impact in the field of Early Music.

From Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons to Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s “Sturm und Drang”

The distinguished international artist, Spanish Lina Tur Bonet, along with the Festival’s Baroque Orchestra, which consists of some of the most important and active musicians of the Greek Baroque Scene, present a two-part programme, including a musical dialogue between Antonio Vivaldi’s fiery Italian world and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s expressive tension and innovation.

In the first part of the concert, featuring soloist Lina Tur Bonet, we encounter one of the most famous pieces in music history, Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, which was released exactly three hundred years ago, in 1725, as part of a set of twelve concertos for violin, strings, and basso continuo, titled Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione (The Contest Between Harmony and Invention), Op. 8 (1725).

The second part is dedicated to the highly original and emotionally charged music by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, which aligns with the aesthetic of the German literary movement “Sturm und Drang,” and has had a profound impact on composers such as Haydn and Mozart, who considered Carl Philipp Emanuel as their spiritual father, serving as a precursor to the Romantic era.

The production “Baroque Music Festival: The Age of Transitions” is part of the GNO Alternative Stage’s unit of programming titled “CYCLE OF THEMATIC CONCERTS”, which falls under the ACT “FESTIVAL EVENTS OF THE GNO ALTERNATIVE STAGE 2024-2025” » (MIS 6002467) with code 2024ΕΠ08570049 (Priority: “Fostering regional social cohesion through the enhancement of mechanisms and infrastructure to support employment, education, health care and socioeconomic inclusion” of the programme “Attica 2021-2027) and is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and National Resources.