London’s Baroque current tightens into a particularly coherent three-night route from Thursday 29 October through Saturday 31 October. Two dates at St John's Smith Square (Sinfonia Smith Square) sit inside the London Festival of Baroque Music’s 2026 “Refractions” season, which frames historical repertoire through present-day performers and perspectives. Between them, Arcangelo opens an English Baroque Journey at Wigmore Hall. The useful connection is scale: keyboard variations receive orchestral colour, chapel anthems arrive through a period-performance ensemble, then Bach’s largest sacred statement closes the festival weekend.[1][2][3][4][5]

Thursday: Bach’s keyboard labyrinth in orchestral colour

Begin at 7.30pm on Thursday with Sinfonia Smith Square and conductor Robin O’Neill’s Goldbergs Reimagined. Bach’s Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, began as a work for keyboard, built from an aria and 30 variations. O’Neill’s version distributes that intricate architecture across the orchestra, making texture the evening’s main point of contact: lines that a solo player might imply can emerge as separate instrumental voices. The 90-minute, interval-free format gives the piece room to feel like one continuous structure, with each variation serving the route back towards the returning aria.[1][2]

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Friday: Arcangelo’s English sacred line

At 7.30pm on Friday, Arcangelo brings a different Baroque map to Wigmore Hall. Jonathan Cohen leads singers including Hilary Cronin, Daisy Livesey, James Hall, Jeremy Budd, Hugo Brady, Matthew Long and William Gaunt in sacred vocal music that traces England from the Restoration towards Handel. The programme moves through Christopher Gibbons, Matthew Locke, Pelham Humfrey, John Blow, Maurice Greene and Purcell, ending with Handel’s O praise the Lord with one consent. Arcangelo describes this as the opening chapter of its English Baroque Journey, a series made with Wigmore Hall; its long-running chamber ethos should suit a programme where choral weight and individual vocal lines continually meet.[4][5]

Saturday: the festival’s Bach summit

Saturday returns to St John's Smith Square (Sinfonia Smith Square) at 7pm for Bach’s Mass in B minor, BWV 232. Lauren Lodge-Campbell and Ana Beard Fernández take the soprano parts, joined by Bethany Horak-Hallett, Laurence Kilsby and Dingle Yandell, with La Nuova Musica directed by David Bates. The Mass closes the London Festival of Baroque Music, and its two-hour running time including an interval makes it the weekend’s fullest commitment. After Thursday’s orchestral refraction and Friday’s English anthems, this is the expansive destination: virtuosic choral writing set beside arias, with Bach’s sacred language given its largest frame.[1][3]

Plan the route

This thread works as three separate nights or as a compact study in how Baroque music changes shape with forces, venue and repertoire. Thursday’s Goldbergs Reimagined starts at 7.30pm; Arcangelo begins at Wigmore Hall at 7.30pm on Friday, with a free pre-concert talk scheduled for 6pm; Saturday’s Mass in B minor begins at 7pm. Check the official pages for ticket availability, access details, running times and any last-minute changes before travelling.[2][3][4][5]

These concerts happened on 29–31 October 2026

The next dates at these venues: St John's Smith Square (Sinfonia Smith Square) · Wigmore Hall

Sources

  1. London Festival of Baroque Music — Sinfonia Smith Square
  2. Goldbergs Reimagined — Sinfonia Smith Square
  3. Bach: Mass in B Minor — Sinfonia Smith Square
  4. Arcangelo at Wigmore Hall: “The Music more full than it was” — Arcangelo
  5. Arcangelo at Wigmore Hall — Wigmore Hall