Ealing Choral Society Summer Concert: Shearing, Chilcott, Swayne, Tallis

A fizzy study in contrasts for the summer. Missa Tiburtina, Giles Swayne’s angry setting of the Mass is a statement on how humanity is destroying our world and ignoring the poor. In Tunes from Archbishop Parker’s Psalter, Tallis’s simple psalm settings take the audience on a deeper journey through the work, suitably interspersed between movements of the Mass. The second half of the concert mirrors the first but in a lighter vein. Chilcott’s Little Jazz Mass for choir, double bass and piano is followed by jazz composer George Shearing’s settings of songs and sonnets from Shakespeare. A delight for a summer’s evening!