This year’s opening concert in Brecon Cathedral, Welcome to all the Pleasures, is directed by Eric Milnes and features Rachel Podger, Brecon Baroque, Brecon Baroque Festival Choir and outstanding soloists including sopranos Joanne Lunn and Héloïse Bernard, counter-tenor Robin Blaze, tenor Jorge Navarro-Colorado and baritone Greg Skidmore. The concert features music by Charpentier, Telemann, Purcell and Couperin - a French baroque-themed festival opener at its best.

In 1683, the Musical Society of London commissioned a setting of Christopher Fishburn’s ode Welcome to All the Pleasures for a performance on St. Cecilia’s Day (November 22nd).  The Society chose 24-year-old composer Henry Purcell to write it. The work proved to be a hit and was published the following year — a rarity for an extended work in Restoration England.

François Couperin (1668–1733) wrote music for the liturgy of the “dark hours” of Holy Week which is exquisite. The ‘Leçons de ténèbres’ (lessons of darkness) demonstrates Couperin’s inimitable sensitivity to the colour of the human voice.

Georg Philipp Telemann was a prolific cantata writer, including these two beautiful Lutheran cantatas. To date, more than 1,750 Telemann cantatas have been catalogued, with new discoveries coming to light almost every year.

A brilliant composer of the French middle Baroque, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, was commissioned by the Parisian de Guise family to write ‘Messe pour les Trépassés’ for the stricken Parisian de Guise family.