Future concerts

Join us at St Luke’s Church, Watford on 21st April for a stunningly beautiful evening of choral music.

This programme weaves contrasting themes of faith, sin and redemption, clarity and madness into a glorious musical tapestry. From the drama of Bach, Stanford and Parry to the reflective lyricism of Harris, and featuring a little-known choral cycle by Schumann, this is a concert not to be missed.

Next Concert

Jesu meine freude is the earliest, longest and most musically complex of Bach’s six motets written for the Thomaskirche, Leipzig. It was written in 1723 for the funeral of Johanna Maria Käsin, the wife of that city’s postmaster. The chorale melody on which it is based was by Johann Crüger (1653), first appearing in his Praxis pietatis melica. The German text is by Johann Franck and dates from about three years earlier using verses from the Epistle to the Romans speaking of Christ freeing man from sin and death. It contrasts dramatic images of heaven and hell, often within a single section. Bach's vivid setting of the words heightens the effect, resulting in a motet with an uncommonly wide dramatic range.

Vier Doppelchörige Gesänge is Schumann’s only work for mixed double chorus. During his Dresden years, out of financial necessity, he was much more involved with choral works than he had been before as both composer and conductor. He instituted a mixed-voice choir there, the Verein für Choregesang, and probably wrote these four double choruses for that group in 1848. They are settings of poems by Rückert, Zedlitz and Goethe and were published posthumously. The focus is strongly on the harmonies among the vocal parts rather than upon melody or any single part’s line.

Stanford’s moving Magnificat in B flat major for double choir was composed in 1918 and dedicated “...in grief” to Stanford’s friend and contemporary Sir Hubert Parry. The Latin text is clothed with vivacious and spirited writing which clearly has its roots in the great motets of Bach and Brahms.

Britten’s popular choral work, Rejoice in the Lamb was written for the 50th anniversary of St. Matthew’s Church, Northampton in 1943. Britten called his work a Festival Cantata and it is structured with choral and solo movements. The text by the supposedly mad Christopher Smart (1722-1771) is part of a poem called Jubilate Agno which he composed in a mental asylum having been committed there by his father-in-law for apparent religious mania. It was W.H. Auden who brought the poem to Britten’s attention. It is easy to see why Britten was so attracted to Smart’s poem. It has great colour, drama, bizarre imagery, and the central issue of the individual against the crowd, or against authority, was one to which Britten was to return repeatedly in his works.

The Prelude and Fugue in G major BWV 541 was originally written during Bach's time at Weimar and was revised in 1742. The Prelude opens with a single melodic line descending, before rising to greet the entry of the pedals and a fuller chordal texture. The Fugue has its subject announced in the alto, answered in the tenor, followed by the bass in the pedals and finally the soprano and continuing on an impressive scale to conclude with a sustained upper note, followed by a final tonic pedal below.

Blest Pair of Sirens was was written by Parry in 1887 and sets Milton’s Ode At a solemn music. It was commissioned by, and dedicated to Stanford who conducted the first performance by the Bach Choir. Strongly influenced by Bach and Brahms, it proved to be a milestone in Parry’s fortunes and in the revival of English choral music. Its originality, passion and fluent technical mastery were quite unprecedented at the time.

Faire is the Heaven is perhaps Harris’s most enduring and best-loved piece. It is a spacious and expansive piece for double choir which exploits and challenges the range of the human voice. The words are taken from a much longer poem by Edmund Spenser (1552-1599), A Hymne of Heavenly Beautie. Harris was best known in his lifetime as an organist and choirmaster. He lectured in composition at the Royal College of Music from 1923, numbering Howells and Britten amongst his pupils.