Vaughan Williams. Gabrieli. Jockel

The unique architecture of the celebrated St Mark's Basilica in Venice came to be a prime factor in the emergence of a very particular phenomenon in music history, one centred on a group of composers known collectively as the Venetian School. In the late 16th century and early 17th the Basilica's interior, with its vast expanses of space, multiple choir lofts, echoing vaults and seemingly endless sound delay, gave rise to a highly creative approach to the relationship between music and physical space. Singers and instrumentalists were distributed in groups throughout the interior, singing and playing sometimes together but very often in opposition (antiphony), and at varying distances from the organ, which was at the centre of the musical action. The Venetian polychoral style, as it is known, reached its culmination in the works of composer-organist Giovanni Gabrieli.

For this fourth concert in our series we welcome back young German talent Oscar Jockel, who last year appeared with the orchestra to considerable acclaim in three roles within one programme: those of conductor, composer and harpsichordist. Jockel's own fascination with sound and his love of the music of Gabrieli led him to create his atmospheric paths in the sky for five instrumental groups. On this occasion we shall hear both composers in sequence. Instruments will sound from all corners of the Dvořák Hall – our little St Mark's for an evening – and the listener is in for a truly memorable sonic experience, being, in the words of Oscar Jockel, "in the here and now".

The Gabrieli-Jockel pairing is both prefaced and anticipated by Ralph Vaughan Williams' Tallis Variations, which, composed for performance at Gloucester Cathedral, is at once an echo of 16th-century England in the Phrygian modality of its theme and the antiphonal treatment of its multiple ensembles, and modern in its sumptuous harmonies and bold dynamic contrasts.

The evening ends with Grieg's widely loved, poetic and folk-influenced Piano Concerto no. 1, penned by its composer at just twenty-five and performed here by International Chopin Competition prizewinner Charles Richard-Hamelin.