Welcome to the 44th season of the St Albans Chamber Choir
As always, the Chamber Choir's programme ranges widely, including
great masterpieces, equally rewarding rarities, medieval intricacies and modern
flamboyance.
The Christmas Story by Heinrich Schütz is a
particular favourite of our conductor. Like Monteverdi's Vespers,
performed by the choir in May 2002, it is as striking instrumentally as it is
vocally, each of the characters having their own sound-world and we shall
naturally be partnered by specialist players of early instruments. The
programme will actually tell the familiar story twice as a sequence of Advent
and Christmas motets will precede the main work
In February we offer a programme of strongly contrasting shorter works
chosen with the lovely Abbey acoustic in mind. The inclusion of music by
Dunstaple marks the 450th anniversary of his death and makes for an
interesting comparison with Jonathan Harvey's 1984 setting of the same
text. Opportunities to hear the music of the Tave(r)ners old and new are
always fascinating and the programme is completed by two settings of the
Stabat Mater - meditative from Palestrina, but featuring
spectacular choral writing in ten parts from Domenico Scarlatti, who is
perhaps better known for his harpsichord sonatas.
April 2003 will bring another visit from the Wormser Kantorei,
our colleagues and friends from St Albans's twin town on the river Rhein. Their
conductor, Stefan Merkelbach, will direct the combined choirs in the little
known but beautiful Miserere by ETA Hoffmann, as accomplished a
composer as he was a poet. David Hansell will take over for Mozart's
magnificent Requiem, left unfinished by the composer but here completed
by the distinguished scholar and composer Duncan Druce. His skilful
reconstructions from Mozart's sketches have created an imposing structure,
surely more in line with the composer's thoughts than the rather perfunctory
realisations often heard.
To round off the season, we make a rare excursion to Tin Pan Alley in
the company of one of Britain's leading concert pianists, Murray
McLachlan. Join us, not only for this
but the whole of what promises to be yet another memorable concert
series.
