ACADEMY OF ANCIENT MUSIC

Symphony Hall, Birmingham, 9 March

Tel: +44 (0)121 780 3333 Web: www.thsh.co.uk

Directing the Academy of Ancient Music for the first time, viola da gambist extraordinaire Jordi Savall dips a toe in Handel’s Water Music. But the programme also inclines heavily towards France, starting at the Court of the Sun King, Louis XIV, where a Suite from Lully’s Alceste paves the way to music from Marais’s Alcyone and Rameau’s operatic swansong Les Boréades.