Events Diary and Details
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| Date | Time | Venue | Event |
| Sunday 16 December 2007 | 6.00 pm |
St Mary's Church, Boxford |
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| Sunday 6 April 2008 | 6.00 pm | St Mary's Church, Boxford | Song of Songs |
| Monday 26 May 2008 | 6.00 pm |
St Mary's Church, Hadleigh | A Portrait of William Boyce |
For concert details click links or scroll down |
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SUNDAY
16 DECEMBER 2007, 6.00 p.m. St
Mary’s Church, Boxford A
French Baroque Christmas MARC-ANTOINE
CHARPENTIER soloists to include: Claire Tomlin (soprano), Janet Bullard (alto) & Patrick McCarthy (tenor) Psalmody Members of Essex Baroque Orchestra directed by Peter Holman Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643–1704) was the greatest composer of late seventeenth-century France, equivalent to Henry Purcell in England. He wrote his famous Messe de Minuit (Midnight Mass) for the celebration of Mass on Christmas night in a Paris church in the early 1690s. It was the custom on these occasions to sing and play popular French noëls or Christmas carols, and Charpentier had the delightful idea of incorporating them into his setting of the Mass: ten tunes are heard during the course of the work, together with an eleventh, ‘Laissez paître vos bêtes’, which is specified for the offertory. Recreating the spirit of a French midnight mass, we have added other suitable Christmas music, including Charpentier’s Magnificat in F major H77, probably written for Christmas a year or two before the Midnight Mass, a lively Christmas motet by Henry Du Mont (1610–1684) and a sensuous solo soprano setting of the Gloria by Louis-Nicolas Clérambault (1676–1749). There will also be two suites of noëls for orchestra by the court composer Michel-Richard de Lalande (1657–1726). SUNDAY
6 APRIL 2008, 6.00 p.m. St
Mary’s Church, Boxford Song of Songs A Musical Exploration of Marian Devotion Stile Antico Stile Antico is a young chamber choir that is rapidly attracting attention for the quality of its singing and its unique style of performance, working without a conductor. It was a finalist in the 2005 Early Music Network International Young Artists’ Competition in York, winning the Audience Prize, and it was subsequently signed up by the Harmonia Mundi label; its first CD, Music for Compline, won the prestigious Diapason d’Or and Choc du Monde de la Musique awards. Recent activities have included a European tour, a residence at Dartington’s International Summer School and an appearance with Sting at the 2007 Classical BRIT Awards at the Royal Albert Hall. In this programme Stile Antico explores the connections between the Biblical Song of Solomon and Marian devotion in the sixteenth century. Sumptuous motets by the great Continental Renaissance composers, including Palestrina, Victoria, Gombert, Guerrero, Lassus and Clemens non Papa, are contrasted with the great plain song hymns ‘Regina coeli’, ‘Alma redemptoris mater’, ‘Salve regina’ and ‘Ave regina coelorum’. ‘The
singing is staggeringly beautiful, the balance
meticulous’—Sunday Times
MONDAY
26 MAY 2008, 6.00 p. m. St
Mary’s Church, Hadleigh A
Portrait of William Boyce soloists to include: Philippa Hyde (soprano), Timothy Travers-Brown (countertenor), Patrick McCarthy (tenor) Psalmody Essex
Baroque Orchestra directed
by Peter Holman As part of our occasional series exploring the music of eighteenth-century English composers, this concert celebrates the music of William Boyce (1711–1779). Boyce was consistently the finest and most wide-ranging English contemporary of Handel, writing in most of the forms of the day, including church music, theatre music, oratorios, court odes (he was Master of the King’s Music from 1757), songs and instrumental music. The main item in this programme is his youthful masterpiece, the powerful short oratorio David’s Lamentation over Saul and Jonathan, written for a London music club in 1736 but revised for Dublin in 1744. The programme also includes the fine orchestral anthem ‘O be joyful in God’, written for a festival of Boyce’s music in Cambridge in 1749, and the Worcester Overture (Symphony no. 8, published in 1760), written for the Three Choirs Festival and one of his few independent orchestral works. There will also be a selection of his finest songs, including the beautiful ‘Softly rise, O southern breeze’ from Solomon (1742). |