Mark Forkgen will conduct London Concert Choir, Canticum, Southbank Sinfonia and soloists Claire Seaton (soprano) and Thomas Humphreys (baritone) in two works by young composers confronting the universal themes of life and death. Despite the subject they are ultimately full of hope.
Brahms wrote the German Requiem, one of the truly great choral masterpieces, not as a Mass for the Dead, but to console the living. He chose texts from Luther’s translation of the Bible to contrast the transience of human life with the everlasting nature of God and the joy of the world to come. Partly inspired by the death of the composer’s mother, the Requiem evolved over a period of twelve years and was completed in 1868, when Brahms was 36.
Richard Strauss was only 25 when he composed Death and Transfiguration, an orchestral tone poem about an elderly man whose journey through life and struggle with death end in peace as his soul finally attains perfection. On his own deathbed 60 years later, Strauss remarked, “Dying is just as I composed it.”
Both London Concert Choir and Canticum display remarkable musical versatility and expressiveness under the leadership of Mark Forkgen. Southbank Sinfonia is internationally recognised as a leading orchestral academy for young graduate professional musicians from across the world.
