Joyful Company of Singers https://www.jcos.co.uk/ One of Britain's leading amateur chamber choirs Wed, 21 Feb 2024 15:59:05 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://www.jcos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/JCS-logo-125x125.jpg Joyful Company of Singers https://www.jcos.co.uk/ 32 32 JCS on Tour – May ’24 https://www.jcos.co.uk/jcs-on-tour-may-24/ Mon, 19 Feb 2024 13:23:28 +0000 https://www.jcos.co.uk/?p=4023 We are putting the final touches to plans for our tour of North Northumberland in May 2024, with our main performances: ‘Far from Land’ at St Mary’s Church, Wooler on Saturday 4th May at 7.30pm, where we open the 2024 Wooler Arts Summer Concerts series; ‘Transitions’ at St Paul’s RC Church, Alnwick on Sunday 5th…

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We are putting the final touches to plans for our tour of North Northumberland in May 2024, with our main performances:

‘Far from Land’ at St Mary’s Church, Wooler on Saturday 4th May at 7.30pm, where we open the 2024 Wooler Arts Summer Concerts series;

‘Transitions’ at St Paul’s RC Church, Alnwick on Sunday 5th May at 7pm.

The two concerts’ programmes are complementary but with differences, on themes that feature the sea, life’s transitions and voyages of many kinds.

 

In ‘Far from Land’, the centre-piece of the programme is John Casken’s Uncertain Sea which interleaves two poems by Katrina Porteous who has lived and worked on the Northumbrian coast since 1987. It is a vivid and atmospheric evocation of the sea and those who earn their living in its dangerous environment. The programme includes two more of Casken’s pieces, the first performance of Floore of Allegories on a text of the metaphysical poet George Herbert, and Caedmon’s Hymn, setting a translation of the 7th century poem by the supposedly illiterate cowherd born near Wooler who, according to Bede, was miraculously empowered to compose and sing this poem in honour of God the Creator.

A much lighter picture of the sea dates back even further to the sixth century legend of St. Brendan and the Fishes, as interpreted in a poem by Ian Serraillier and set to music by Paul Reade.

Judith Bingham had a close encounter with drowning some years ago, and the experience moved her to write The Drowned Lovers, creating a mirror image to the famous choral piece The Blue Bird by Stanford and re-working its material into a companion piece. The poet who wrote The Blue Bird, Mary E Coleridge, also wrote Chillingham, an evocation of a local village, which inspired another Stanford setting we shall perform.

Finnish composer Jaakko Mäntyjärvi wrote Canticum Calamitatis Maritimae in response to the sinking of the MS Estonia in September 1994 en route from Tallinn to Stockholm, and the piece is dedicated to the memory of the 910 people who lost their lives. The main choral section is a setting of words from Psalm 107 “They that go down to the sea in ships”. The other element is a solo soprano who sings a folk-like melody which is intentionally generic and could come from any Northern country.

The programme also includes choral arrangements of English folksongs related to the sea by Vaughan Williams, and settings of familiar folk songs of Northumberland by W G Whittaker and Derek Hobbs.

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In ‘Transitions’ at Alnwick we will be joined by the poet, author and broadcaster Katrina Porteous, who will be reading some of her poems and writings interspersed with our choral items.

As well as Uncertain Sea by John Casken we include a piece he wrote in 1993 for the 900th Anniversary of Durham Cathedral entitled Sunrising, to the words of poet Sylvia Townsend Warner.

Sir James MacMillan was taught by  John Casken at Durham University in the 1980s, and he is represented in this programme by two pieces. O Radiant Dawn is one of his Strathclyde Motets, and …fiat mihi… sets the words of the Virgin Mary at the Annunciation: “let it be done to me according to your word”.

As well as her re-working of Stanford’s The Bluebird in The Drowned Lovers, we also feature Judith Bingham’s Distant Thunder, her re-interpretation of My Soul, there is a country from the Parry Songs of Farewell.  We follow My soul with the third and fourth of the six-movement Parry collection.

Our Alnwick programme also includes the composition which has perhaps become Sir John Tavener’s best-known – the Song for Athene, which demonstrates the hallmark influences of Orthodox liturgical music, and which made such an impact all over the world when it was sung at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Finally, we shall again feature settings of familiar Northumberland folk songs, as arranged by W G Whittaker and Derek Hobbs.

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As well as our two main performances, we shall be giving free half-hour afternoon ‘taster sessions’ at popular local tourist venues:

  • on 4th May at 2.15pm in the minstrels’ gallery at Ad Gefrin, the new Anglo-Saxon Museum and Whisky Distillery at Wooler
  • on 5th May at 1.45pm at The Alnwick Garden, a unique contemporary botanical garden.

Our tour also includes educational outreach events with local schools – so it’s going to be a busy long-weekend for JCS!

Do join us at one or all of our performances!

For tickets for ‘Far from Land’ at St Mary’s Church, Wooler on Saturday 4th May, click this link: Wooler Arts (thelittleboxoffice.com)

For tickets for ‘Transitions’ at St Paul’s RC Church, Alnwick on Sunday 5th May, click this link: Eventbrite – Transitions

 

 

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Salut Printemps! https://www.jcos.co.uk/salut-printemps/ Mon, 08 Jan 2024 17:25:55 +0000 https://www.jcos.co.uk/?p=3928   On the third day of ‘astronomical’ Spring we present a programme of music from France – travelling through time and space into the world of fin de siècle Paris with Debussy’s greeting for women’s voices on a 19th Century poem, and his three settings of poems by a 15th Century nobleman who was held…

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On the third day of ‘astronomical’ Spring we present a programme of music from France – travelling through time and space into the world of fin de siècle Paris with Debussy’s greeting for women’s voices on a 19th Century poem, and his three settings of poems by a 15th Century nobleman who was held hostage by the English for 24 years after the Battle of Agincourt!

The Trois Chansons de Charles d’Orléans are the only songs Debussy left for unaccompanied choir, as were the Trois Chansons we shall also perform by his younger contemporary Ravel. These were written at the beginning of the First World War when Ravel was anxious to enlist to fight for his country, and he wrote the poems in the style of 16th Century popular Chansons.

Gabriel Fauré, the centenary of whose death is marked this year, is represented by his ever-popular Cantique de Jean Racine and the Madrigal set as a mischievous wedding present for his friend and ex-pupil  André Messager, who was the dedicatee.

And no homage to French choral composition would be complete without including Francis Poulenc – we shall sing a selection from his Sept Chansons (1936) – commentators have designated this work for mixed chorus as ‘a true modern counterpart of the polyphonic works of the French Renaissance masters’.

The second part of our concert features arrangements of well-known songs that also date from the first half of the last century – but in this case, repreesenting the great French cabaret tradition exemplified by Charles Trenet and – of course – Edith Piaf.

Do join us on Friday 22nd March 2024 for the pre-concert talk at 6.30pm with the performance starting at 7pm in St. Gabriel’s Church, Pimlico.

Tickets are now on sale online from ticketsource.

À bientôt!

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Christmas ‘Composer of the Week’ – JCS sings RVW! https://www.jcos.co.uk/christmas-composer-of-the-week-rvw-with-jcs/ Fri, 22 Dec 2023 14:20:51 +0000 https://www.jcos.co.uk/?p=3906 What a Joyful way to close ‘Composer of the Week’ on BBC Radio 3 as we head into the Christmas holiday! JCS features on no less than three of the selected tracks in today’s (22nd December) episode https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001tb15 where presenter Kate Molleson explores Ralph Vaughan Williams’s experiences of Christmas alongside some of his best loved…

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What a Joyful way to close ‘Composer of the Week’ on BBC Radio 3 as we head into the Christmas holiday!
JCS features on no less than three of the selected tracks in today’s (22nd December) episode https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001tb15 where presenter Kate Molleson explores Ralph Vaughan Williams’s experiences of Christmas alongside some of his best loved pieces, especially the music he wrote to celebrate the festive period.
The broadcast opens and closes with extracts from our recording for Chandos Records of ‘The First Nowell’ – RVW’s final work – with Sarah Fox, soprano, Roderick Williams, baritone and the City of London Sinfonia under the late Richard Hickox.

 

Also featured is ‘Epithalamion (the bridal day) – Procession of the bride’ which we recorded with the Britten Sinfonia under Alan Tongue for Albion Records, the label of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society.
You can hear this episode and the previous four via the BBC Radio 3 webpage: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006tnxf/episodes/player
Our thanks to Kate Molleson, to producer Sam Phillips for BBC Audio Wales and West and to BBC Radio 3 for a great series …
…and to all our listeners and supporters – have yourselves a Joyful Christmas!

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Celebrate ‘A Choral Christmas’ with JCS! https://www.jcos.co.uk/celebrate-a-choral-christmas-with-jcs/ Tue, 21 Nov 2023 18:29:47 +0000 https://www.jcos.co.uk/?p=3864 We’ll be performing ‘A Choral Christmas’ at St Gabriel’s, Pimlico, at 7pm on Monday 18th December. Conducted by Peter Broadbent, our programme includes music by: …Renaissance composers Sweelinck, Victoria and Gallus, …19th century German composers Mendelssohn, Bruckner and Reger, …contemporary composers from England and Slovenia. Join in the singing of familiar Christmas carols accompanied by…

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We’ll be performing ‘A Choral Christmas’ at St Gabriel’s, Pimlico, at 7pm on Monday 18th December.

Conducted by Peter Broadbent, our programme includes music by:

…Renaissance composers Sweelinck, Victoria and Gallus,

…19th century German composers Mendelssohn, Bruckner and Reger,

…contemporary composers from England and Slovenia.

Join in the singing of familiar Christmas carols accompanied by organist Gavin Roberts then take part with us in performing My Guardian Angel, a Christmas song by the current Master of the King’s Music, Judith Weir, which the JCS premiered at the Spitalfields Winter Festival over 20 years ago.

Buy your tickets in advance for £20 (£10 U30, unwaged) from www.ticketsource.co.uk (plus booking fee)

or pay £25/£10 on the door.

Download and share the flyer A Choral Christmas – bring your friends and family – refreshments will be available to add to the festive mood!

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Remembrance https://www.jcos.co.uk/remembrance/ Mon, 02 Oct 2023 19:20:26 +0000 https://www.jcos.co.uk/?p=3813   We span a century of choral music, from the Requiem Mass written in 1923 by the Italian composer Ildebrando Pizzetti in memory of his wife to Memorial for the Fallen and Lost by John Casken – a work written in 2014 in memory of the men of several villages in Upper Coquetdale in Northumberland…

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We span a century of choral music, from the Requiem Mass written in 1923 by the Italian composer Ildebrando Pizzetti in memory of his wife to Memorial for the Fallen and Lost by John Casken – a work written in 2014 in memory of the men of several villages in Upper Coquetdale in Northumberland who did not return from the Great War and have no known grave.

Our programme also features two world premières: a setting of John Keats’ To Autumn by our Composer-in-Association Zoe Dixon, and the motet Ave Maris Stella by our own Jonathan Lane, who won the prize for the best composition for a mixed choir in the 2023 Orfeó Català Competition in Spain. The official première of his piece will be given in Barcelona next year but we are honoured to have permission to give its actual first public performance.

Other works we shall perform include the well-loved motet Beati Quorum Via by Stanford, and a setting of the Libera Me by the Hungarian composer Lajos Bárdos.

Do join us for ‘Remembrance’ at St Gabriel’s Church, Pimlico, London SW1V 2AD, on Thursday 16th November 2023 at 7pm, with a free Pre-Concert Talk at 6.30pm

Tickets: in advance for £20 (£10 U30, unwaged) from www.ticketsource.co.uk (plus booking fee)

or £25/£10 on the door.

 

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Jonathan Lane wins Fundació Orfeó Català international choral composition prize https://www.jcos.co.uk/jonathan-lane-wins-fundacio-orfeo-catala-international-choral-composition-prize/ Fri, 28 Jul 2023 10:49:11 +0000 https://www.jcos.co.uk/?p=3751 We are delighted to share the news that Jonathan Lane, one of our singers and also an accomplished composer of choral works, has won a major prize in the prestigious Orfeó Català Composition Competition – which this year attracted entries from a total of 219 composers from 51 nationalities.   His setting of the words…

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We are delighted to share the news that Jonathan Lane, one of our singers and also an accomplished composer of choral works, has won a major prize in the prestigious Orfeó Català Composition Competition – which this year attracted entries from a total of 219 composers from 51 nationalities.

 

His setting of the words of the medieval hymn Ave Maris Stella won The Maria Font de Carulla Award for the best choral composition for a mixed choir.

The work will be premièred in the Choral Music Festival that will take place on 3rd March 2024 at the Palau de la Música Catalana, for more than a century the spectacular setting for the musical life, both national and international, of the city of Barcelona.

[Photo credit – Matteo Vecchi].

 

Jonathan has been with the JCS since 1991, singing in concerts, recordings and tours in dozens of festivals and competitions all over Europe and the US, including being in the winning JCS team in the Llangollen Choir of the World Competition. We have also enjoyed performing premières of some of his unaccompanied choral pieces – typically in our Christmas concerts.

Congratulations from all the JCS, Jonathan!

Link to Fundació Orfeó Català press release:

https://www.palaumusica.cat/ca/jonathan-lane-i-gerard-lopez-boada-son-els-guanyadors-del-iv-concurs-de-composicio-de-l-orfeo-catala-i-carles-prat-joaquim-badia-i-andreu-diport-han-estat-els-guardonats-dels-ix-premis-internacionals-catalunya-de-composicio-coral-de-la-fcec_1166157

 

 

 

 

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Paul Reade and John Casken https://www.jcos.co.uk/paul-reade-and-john-casken/ Wed, 31 May 2023 11:47:19 +0000 https://www.jcos.co.uk/?p=3721   In this second blog about our next performance, ‘Boundless’,  our Music Director Peter Broadbent introduces us to these two composers…   Paul Reade (1943-1997) spent the first part of his professional life as a repetiteur. After studying at the Royal Academy of Music he went on to the London Opera Centre and worked for…

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In this second blog about our next performance, ‘Boundless’,  our Music Director Peter Broadbent introduces us to these two composers…

 

Paul Reade (1943-1997) spent the first part of his professional life as a repetiteur. After studying at the Royal Academy of Music he went on to the London Opera Centre and worked for a while at the Sadlers Wells Opera Company (later ENO), so his understanding of the voice was considerable.

He wrote a significant amount of instrumental music, including music for television such as the very popular Victorian Kitchen Garden, the music for which he turned into a Suite, and for which he won an Ivor Novello Award in 1991. The music for the TV adaptation of Jane Eyre made a big impact, and his theme music for The Antiques Roadshow remains a favourite.

His large-scale ballets for Sir David Bintley’s Birmingham Royal Ballet – Hobson’s Choice and Far from the Madding Crowd have a regular place in the repertoire.

In the 1980s he wrote a setting of a poem by Ian Serraillier for Guy Prothero and the English Chamber Choir called St. Brendan and the Fishes, which later became part of the JCS repertoire. He was looking for suitable texts to write a companion piece when he found a collection of Irish Poems edited by John Montague which had some wonderful English-language versions of ancient Irish verse, and the texts for both Seascapes and The Vikings were written for the Joyful Company.

Paul would have been 80 in January this year, and I am sure he would have continued to produce wonderful music in all genres had he lived beyond the age of only 54.

 

John Casken (b.1949) was born in Barnsley and studied at Birmingham University with John Joubert and Peter Dickinson, then at the Warsaw Academy of Music. He has been a lecturer at Birmingham and Durham Universities and spent 16 years as Professor of Music at Manchester. His students include Sir James MacMillan.

His extensive output includes music in most genres, a great deal of orchestral and chamber music and two operas, Golem and God’s Liar, both of which have been performed in several countries.

His choral music is an important part of his work, and we are pleased to be giving the London Premiere of Uncertain Sea, in which he conflates two poems by Katrina Porteous, one of which is in Northumbrian dialect. This was commissioned by the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain in 2014, and For dappled things, a setting of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ Pied Beauty, was written as a present for the 60th Birthday of James MacMillan in 2019.

In his own words:

“Composers are often asked to describe their music – an impossible request – but when I was recently asked by the Cheltenham Festival to do this in five words, I decided that ‘windswept, dreamy, turbulent, melancholic and painterly’ just about sum it up. I also value colour, the vivid and dramatic, and I strive for a beauty of sound as well as a poetic utterance.”

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We perform ‘Boundless’ on Friday 23rd June 2023 at St. Gabriel’s Church, Pimlico.

More details and ticketing links are on our Performances page – click here.

[‘Boundless’ photo – Sunset over the Sound of Mull, September 2022, by Christopher Williams]

 

 

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‘Boundless’ https://www.jcos.co.uk/boundless/ Fri, 12 May 2023 15:19:00 +0000 https://www.jcos.co.uk/?p=3687 Our next performance is truly ‘Boundless’ – celebrating sacred and secular choral music spanning over four centuries, on themes of earth and sea and the celestial. Here’s the first of two blogs we’ll be posting to introduce the pieces we’ll be performing… The two great English composers who died exactly 400 years ago, William Byrd…

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Our next performance is truly ‘Boundless’ – celebrating sacred and secular choral music spanning over four centuries, on themes of earth and sea and the celestial.

Here’s the first of two blogs we’ll be posting to introduce the pieces we’ll be performing…

The two great English composers who died exactly 400 years ago, William Byrd and Thomas Weelkes, each left a legacy of wonderful vocal music but had very different characters and influences.

The pieces by Byrd in this programme are all settings of religious texts, one in English and two in Latin. Byrd was famously allowed by Elizabeth I to continue to write and publish music, despite being a Roman Catholic. His output is largely sacred music; his secular vocal music was mostly of solo songs.

One of Byrd’s pupils was Thomas Morley, who was the most influential madrigalist of his day, and who had a great influence on the young Weelkes.

For the last part of his life, Weelkes’ output was largely church music, but he is still regarded as one of the finest madrigalists. In this concert we present one of his sacred madrigals, When David heard, one his most personal works written in memory of his great friend and mentor Morley, Death hath deprived me and conclude with arguably his most famous work and a superb example of word-painting, As Vesta was from Latmos hill descending, his contribution at Morley’s request to the famous collection The Triumphs of Oriana (1601).

From the twentieth century, we feature works by Sir William Henry Harris and Sir William Walton. Harris was a lifelong Church Musician – organist, choirmaster, composer and teacher. He won a scholarship to study at the Royal College of Music when he was 16, and served in a number of prestigious positions in various Cathedrals and University churches until in 1933 he was appointed organist at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, a post he held until his retirement in 1961. Amongst other highlights of his performing life was conducting at the Coronations of 1937 and 1953. He is represented by his two deservedly best-loved anthems, the setting of Spenser’s Faire is the Heaven, and the John Donne setting Bring us, O Lord which was sung at the funeral of the late Queen last year.

Walton’s Cantico del Sole seems to imbue all parts of nature with almost human attributes. He wrote the piece for the Cork Festival where it was first performed by the BBC Singers under Stephen Wilkinson in 1974 – a time when the BBC maintained two professional choirs of the highest quality!

Coming right up to date, our Composer-in-Association Zoe Dixon has chosen for her third commission from the JCS to set a poem by Wordsworth. Contrasting Nature’s goodness with “what man hath done to man” was one of the ideas which sparked the emphasis of this programme. The romantic language of Wordsworth is echoed in Zoe’s setting by a harmonic richness and a very natural expression of the text.

 

Do look out for our next blog post about this programme – which we will perform on Friday 23rd June 2023 at St. Gabriel’s Church, Pimlico.

 

More details and ticketing links are on our Performances page – click here.

 

[‘Boundless’ photo – Sunset over the Sound of Mull, August 2022, by Christopher Williams]

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A Joyful Coronation! https://www.jcos.co.uk/a-joyful-coronation/ Sat, 06 May 2023 21:19:15 +0000 https://www.jcos.co.uk/?p=3674 We send our joyful congratulations to all those who made such marvellous music at the Coronation today – including our Vice Presidents Roxanna Panufnik and John Rutter, amongst the contributing composers whose works enriched the ceremony. And if we may, to a JCS baritone appearing in a non-singing role – that’s our very own Coronation Crucifer!…

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We send our joyful congratulations to all those who made such marvellous music at the Coronation today – including our Vice Presidents Roxanna Panufnik and John Rutter, amongst the contributing composers whose works enriched the ceremony.

And if we may, to a JCS baritone appearing in a non-singing role – that’s our very own Coronation Crucifer!

Hurrah!

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Rachmaninov & Reger @ 150 https://www.jcos.co.uk/rachmaninov-reger-150/ Sun, 29 Jan 2023 17:45:34 +0000 https://www.jcos.co.uk/?p=3546 Our next performance – of two major choral works for unaccompanied choir – commemorates the 150th anniversaries, to within a few days of the actual dates, of the births of composers Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninov (1 April 1873 – 28 March 1943) and Johann Baptist Joseph Maximilian Reger (19 March 1873 – 11 May 1916). Rachmaninov…

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Our next performance – of two major choral works for unaccompanied choir – commemorates the 150th anniversaries, to within a few days of the actual dates, of the births of composers Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninov (1 April 1873 – 28 March 1943) and Johann Baptist Joseph Maximilian Reger (19 March 1873 – 11 May 1916).

Rachmaninov – Liturgy of St John Chrysostom

Saint John Chrysostom was archbishop of Constantinople from 398 to 404 AD. Known for his preaching and public speaking, his asceticism, his denunciation of the abuse of authority by both church and political leaders, his ‘Divine Liturgy’ became the primary worship service of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Besides numerous traditional chants of several schools, the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom has been set by many composers of the 19th to 21st centuries. The setting by Sergei Rachmaninov, his Op n.31, is one of his two major unaccompanied choral works. He composed the work in July 1910 at his summer estate Ivanovka, writing to a friend: “I have been thinking about the Liturgy for a long time and for a long time I strove to write it. I started to work on it somehow by chance and then suddenly became fascinated with it. And then I finished it very quickly. Not for a long time have I written anything with such pleasure”.

Rachmaninov’s original liturgical setting premiered in 1910 in Moscow. However, Russian Orthodox authorities rejected the work’s “spirit of modernism” and did not sanction its further use in church services. Rachmaninov did not promote the work himself, and in the choral repertoire it was soon eclipsed by his All Night Vigil. The full liturgical service is extremely long and includes many repetitive litanies. In the context of a concert performance these are usually omitted, and although we will include some of the exclamations of the Deacon and the Priest the performance will consist mainly of the movements for choir written by Rachmaninov.

Reger – Acht Geistliche Gesänge

Reger composed the motets forming Acht geistliche Gesänge (Eight Sacred Songs), Op. 138, in Meiningen in 1914, at the beginning of World War I. Inspired by Bach’s motets, he had previously composed “extended a cappella choral settings” such as Geistliche Gesänge, Op. 110 with challenging double fugues. In contrast, he composed the eight motets featured in our performance as a master of “new simplicity”, and setting the words of both known and unknown poets.

Reger had wanted to publish the motets only after World War I had ended, but he did not finish checking his publisher’s proofs – they were found next to his bed when he died in a hotel in Leipzig in 1916  – lending additional poignancy to the opening words of the first motet: ‘Der Mensch lebt und bestehet nur eine kleine Zeit’ [A man can live and flourish for but a little time]. The work was thus first published posthumously in Berlin later that year, 1916.

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Do join us when we perform on Thursday 30th March 2023 in St. Gabriel’s Church, Pimlico, SW1V 2AD.

Doors open at 6.15pm with refreshments available – the performance starts at 7pm.

Buy tickets online: www.ticketsource.co.uk/st-gabriels-concerts £18, concessions U30 and unwaged, £10 (booking fees apply).

On the door tickets: £20, concessions U30 and unwaged, £10.

Click here to download the full concert print programme.

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