Durham Singers: The Souls of the RIghteous

Purcell: Funeral music for Queen Mary 
Schütz: Selig sind die Toten SWV 391 
Schütz: Fili mi, Absalom 
Howells: Take him, earth for cherishing 
Schütz: Die mit tränen säen, SWV 378 
Schütz: Wohl dem, der den Herren, SWV 44 
Francis Pott: The Souls of the Righteous 
Bach: O Jesu Christ, mein’s Lebens Licht, BWV 118 

The Durham SIngers are joined by the English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble, whose period instruments add their impressive sonorites to in this programme that draws together collective and private mourning, using music to follow the emotional journey from grief to consolation. 

Purcell’s funeral music for the much-loved Queen Mary was soon heard again at his own funeral later in 1695. Nearly three hundred years later the outstanding English composer Herbert Howells was commissioned to write an anthem for the memorial service for President John F. Kennedy. ‘Take him, earth for cherishing’, is one of his most dramatic and haunting works, opening out from a simple dirge at the beginning to a work of enormous power and range. Balancing Howells is a quiet and gentle anthem by Francis Pott, ‘The souls of the righteous are in the hands of God’ , composed for Winchester Cathedral and somehow enfolding singers and audience in a harmonic evocation of the ‘hands of God’. This beautiful, slow rhapsody draws the programme towards a hopeful, light-infused close with Bach’s ‘Jesu Christ, mein’s Lebens Licht’. 

Event date: 
Saturday, 9 November 2019 - 7:30pm
Ticket Prices: 
Full price £16, students and under 25s £10, children under 13 free
Location: 
Ushaw College
Ushaw College Durham
DH7 9RH Durham
United Kingdom