The Bach Choir – Into Spring: Au Printemps – Duruflé Requiem
Programme
Repertoire:
Duruflé – Requiem
Fauré – Cantique de Jean Racine
Poulenc – Easter motets
Poulenc – Litanies à la Vierge Noire
Conductor:
David Hill
Performers:
Katherine Gregory – Mezzo soprano
Philip Scriven – Organ
Au Printemps brings audiences closer than ever to The Bach Choir. In the fourth concert of our Into Spring series we present a tranquil and lush programme of French works for choir and organ, showcasing the range and intimacy of a choir usually known for performing with the world’s best orchestras.
The ancient world of Gregorian melodies is combined with a harmonic setting typical of 20th Century France in Duruflé’s Requiem. The Requiem blends different styles to achieve an overall sense of peace not usually found in other Requiem settings.
Cantique de Jean Racine was composed by Fauré at the age of twenty when he was attending Paris’ École Niedermeyer. It sets text from French playwright Jean Racine alongside rich, lush choral writing, and will be recognised by some audiences from its appearance in the motion picture Babe. Poulenc’s Quatre Motets pour un temps de pénitence continues the French theme and rounds out the evening.
As the fog of winter clears, Au Printemps brings The Bach Choir’s subtle and delicate side into focus
Upcoming Events
London Oriana Choir – Path of Miracles –
Composer Joby Talbot’s acclaimed choral work, Path of Miracles, takes its inspiration from the famous ancient pilgrimage route to Santiago di Compostela in northern Spain, chronicling the 500-mile journey from the foot of the northern Pyrenees. Join London Oriana Choir, special guest singers from the award-winning, original commissioning ensemble Tenebrae and Dominic Ellis-Peckham for a truly memorable and dramatic performance of this unique choral masterpiece.
The Esterhazy Singers – Haydn’s St Nicholas Mass, and Holst’s The Cloud Messenger – 7pm
Haydn’s mass was dedicated to Nicolaus Esterhazy, his patron from whom we take our name, and in this performance it is paired with Holst’s little known choral masterpiece, considered by the composer one of his best works.
Doors open from 6:30pm for a 7pm performance. Tickets are £25, or £10 for under 25 year olds, and are available at the website below or on the door. Programmes will be available for purchase on the door for £2.
London Concert Choir – Howells Requiem & Stainer The Crucifixion – 7.30pm
in London Concert Choir for an evening of sacred music from two of the great English choral composers, in the perfect setting.
The understated beauty and emotion of Herbert Howells’ interwar Requiem offers the perfect foil for the reverent Victorian grandeur of John Stainer’s Passiontide oratorio, The Crucifixion.
Howells’ unaccompanied Requiem brings his unmistakable compositional voice and very personal interpretation to the Church’s liturgy for the dead. Composed in 1932, but unpublished until 1980, it provided the genesis of the more complex and widely acclaimed Hymnus Paradisi. With characteristic precision and clarity, Howells evokes loss, grief, reflection and redemption, blending elements of the Latin mass and The Book of Common Prayer.