In 'The Art of Variation', Accademia de' Dissonanti presents an unusual program of research, exploration, composition, and performance that corresponds to the most recent innovations in performance practice. Artistic director Elinor Frey, who was a visiting fellow at Lady Margaret Hall for three seasons, now returns to Oxford to share new work on groundbreaking insights into music practice in eighteenth-century Europe. Frey and musicologist Nicholas Baragwanath (Nottingham University) have collaborated on a fascinating exploration into a cello concerto by Neapolitan maestro Leonardo Leo, without a score. This rare concert shows how modern performers could experience a concerto not as a fixed page of instructions but as a recipe for improvisation, in which they may ‘speak’ in their own musical voice, or compose their own works as a vehicle for their careers.

Variations have been one of the most enduring musical forms and have inspired creativity from centuries of musicians as the limitations set by repeating forms paradoxically give way to unbound inventiveness. Whatever the type, varying music is an art that delights the listener with virtuosic gestures and resourceful melodies. Accademia de’ Dissonanti performs these ever-changing variations with violins, cello and harpsichord through celebrated music by Corelli, Leo, Vivaldi, Tartini, and Dall’Abaco, as well as newer compositions.