Rutter’s Requiem
Join us on 1 April, just before the start of Easter week, as we continue to celebrate the choral tradition with a varied programme, perfect for a spring evening. We are delighted to be joined for this concert by soprano Elizabeth Atherton and by baritone and winner of the Sir Geraint Evans prize, Edward Kim.
Dedicated to the memory of his father, John Rutter’s Requiem is both poignant and optimistic in tone. The traditional requiem liturgy is interspersed by psalms and other texts from the Book of Common Prayer, and set to music which traverses pain, comfort and hope. The music is simple but enduringly beautiful. The Requiem will be featured alongside Five Mystical Songs, Ralph Vaughan-Williams’ beautiful setting poems by the Welsh-born priest and poet George Herbert.
We are also delighted to be performing Lili Boulanger’s Pie Jesu. The first female winner of the Prix de Rome composition prize, her early talent was partially discovered by family friend, Gabirel Faure. Her early talent led to a handful of stunning compositions. Her Pie Jesu was her final composition, dictated to her sister Nadia and completed in 1918, just weeks before her death at just 25 years of age. Scholars speculate that this piece was to form part of a requiem mass which she sadly did not live to complete.