Historic Royal Palaces: music at court and Georgian fireworks

At lunchtime on Sundays you can hear beautiful live chamber music in the Chapel Royal, played on period instruments by some of London’s finest baroque musicians. Included in a palace admission ticket.

Top period instrument group the Gabrieli Consort and Players play in the palace and courtyards in a long weekend of music by royal composer George Frideric Handel. There’s dancing in the Privy Garden and on Monday the Scratch Choir, made up of members of the public, perform anthems including ‘Zadok the Priest’. Sign up by email if you want to sing as numbers may be limited on the day. Included in a palace admission ticket.

An evening of baroque music in the Chapel Royal, featuring Handel’s anthems for the coronation of George II. Tickets £20.

The beautiful Privy Garden is the setting for a spectacular display of 18th-century fireworks and illuminations and Handel’s exuberant ‘Music for the Royal Fireworks’, played by 30-piece baroque orchestra Arcangelo. The piece was commissioned by George II for a royal firework party in Green Park in 1749, and was premiered six days earlier by the commercially-minded Handel at a public rehearsal in Vauxhall Gardens. It was attended by 12,000 people and caused hours of carriage gridlock on London Bridge. £35, concs £20.