In Handel’s The Choice of Hercules the demigod is faced with a dilem­ma: should he fol­low the path of Virtue or rev­el in Pleasure? He is briefly enticed in the love­ly Yet, can I hear that dul­cet lay. Bach also wres­tled with the stress­es of moral deci­sions in his Der Streit zwis­chen Phoebus und Pan, in which Pan chal­lenges Apollo to a musi­cal duel.

There is no inter­mis­sion for this concert.