French Masterpieces
Music spanning six centuries
Tickets £15 (concessions £10). Available in advance via Eventbrite
Duruflé: Requiem
Poulenc: Figure humaine
Machaut: Biauté qui toutes autres pere
Machaut: Douce dame jolie
Machaut: Dame, de qui toute ma joie
Image © Papinou – stock.adobe.com
It is particularly fascinating to combine these very different works in one concert, given that they were composed within a few years of each other, and both have a strong connection with the Second World War. Although Duruflé’s mystical sacred work, steeped in plainsong, originated in a commission from the Vichy régime, it was not completed until 1947, and became seen as a memorial to the war dead. Poulenc, by contrast, set the Resistance poetry of Paul Eluard for 12-part unaccompanied choir, in a work that is in turns highly expressive and demonically angry, concluding in a hymn to Liberty.
We also include some hauntingly beautiful works composed some 600 years earlier by Guillaume de Machaut, the composer and poet who dominated 14th century French culture.
Messiah 2023
Highlights from Handel’s masterpiece
What sweeter music
Seven centuries of music for Advent and Christmas
Felix Mendelssohn: Lasset uns frohlocken
Tarik O’Regan: Threshold of Night
Johannes Eccard: Übers Gebirg Maria geht
Matthew Martin: Adam lay y-bounden
14th cent carol (arr. Barry Rose): Angelus ad virginem
Paul Manz: E’en so, Lord Jesus, quickly come
Bob Chilcott: Advent Antiphons
HJ Gauntlett (arr. Mann & O’Donnell): Once in royal David’s city
16th cent French tune (arr. Nicholson): Ding dong! merrily on high
Franz Gruber (arr. Hill): Silent night
Peter Warlock (arr. Hill): Bethlehem Down
JF Wade (arr. Hill): O come, all ye faithful
Michael Praetorius (arr. Hiley): Resonet in laudibus
Richard Rodney Bennett: Puer nobis
Richard Allain: What sweeter music
Eric Whitacre: Lux aurumque
Felix Mendelssohn (arr. Robinson): Hark! the herald angels sing