We Will Remember Them' – The Music of World War I

Camden Choir

The Camden Choir returns to its spiritual home St Mary the Virgin, Primrose Hill, on Saturday 24th November to mark the ending of the ‘War To End All Wars’ in 1918 with a programme of English music dating from around that period.

Hubert Parry composed his Songs of Farewell between 1916 and 1918 (the year of his death). They consist of six motets set to words by John Donne, Henry Vaughan, Thomas Campion & John Gibson Lockhart. Their overall elegiac tone may reflect a sense of loss caused by the death of many of Parry’s most promising students during the First World War. This is the first time that the Camden Choir has performed the entire set.

Sir Edward Elgar’s majestic setting of Psalm 48, Great is the Lord, was written between 1910 & 1912 (prefiguring the start of hostilities) and first performed on 16 July 1912 in Westminster Cathedral, under the baton of Sir Frederick Bridge. 

Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote his Mass in G Minor in 1921 and dedicated it to his contemporary Gustav Holst (1874–1934). First performed by the City of Birmingham Choir, it is written for four soloists and double choir.

The Choir’s founder and Musical Director Julian Williamson conducts this concert, with students of the Royal Academy of Music and Robin Walker (organ).