For the final concert in their 50th anniversary celebrations the Reading Bach Choir are performing some of the favourites and some of the greatest from their history. The programme celebrates the range and variety of their performance over 50 years of music making since the first concert on the 25th January 1967.
A favourite is Britten’s Hymn to St Cecilia. The whole concert is a tribute to the choir’s love and dedication to music so it’s fitting that they sing to the Patron Saint of music. It may be familiar to many concert-goers but Nico Mulhy’s “I cannot attain unto it” is perhaps less so. This is an intense and atmospheric piece which audiences have loved.
The great Tallis 40 part motet Spem in Alium was last performed in the round a few years ago at Douai Abbey to a rapturous reception. This is one of the greatest early pieces from the choral repertoire and shows the choir’s strength with many of the 40 parts being sung by single voices.
Schoenberg’s Friede auf Erden has been performed 7 times over their history! This shows the depth of the choir’s ambition in singing music over 5 centuries and their fearless approach to bringing more unusual or difficult music to a wider audience. This is a lush and intensely emotional piece written in the early 20th century, using some of the harmonic extremes which were a feature of the time but before he entered his pure 12 tone period.
JS Bach’s Der Geist is included - this is the Reading Bach Choir after all. Then to complete the tribute to music over the centuries, Brahms’ Fest und Gedenksprüche.
The whole programme is a fitting way to celebrate 50 glorious years of music making. We hope to show the choir’s extraordinary ambition and their dedication to singing a wide and varied repertoire. Come and join the celebrations.
Britten – Hymn to St Cecilia
Schoenberg – Friede auf erden
