Miserere

Exeter Festival Chorus

The sorrows and suffering of Mary, mother of Christ, are the inspiration for our Easter concert programme. Allegri’s Miserere is a penitential psalm for the Tenebrae services before Easter.
Poulenc’s Litanies à la Vierge Noire were inspired by a pilgrimage to the shrine of the Black Virgin of Rocamadour. Barber’s Agnus Dei, his own choral arrangement of the Adagio for Strings, is followed by Alexander Levine’s Morning Prayer, celebrating the life of a Russian Orthodox priest, assassinated for his beliefs.
The concert ends with Scarlatti’s Stabat Mater, his setting of the 13th century hymn to the mother of Christ, as she stands at the foot of the cross, beholding her son’s crucifixion.