BCC perform at the Melrose Music Festival 7 Sept 2024
| Type of post: | Choir news item |
| Sub-type: | No sub-type |
| Posted By: | Jon Aldridge |
| Status: | Current |
| Date Posted: | Tue, 6 Aug 2024 |
The Borders Chamber Choir performs at the Melrose Music Festival, 7 September, 2024
As September fast approaches, so too does the newly re-launched Melrose Music Festival, at which we’re delighted to have been invited to perform. Not only does this give us a considerable platform in our first season as a choir; it also provides us with another opportunity to select an ambitious programme – and, of course, perform it to our customarily high standards. So please join us at Melrose Parish Church on 7 September for a programme packed with some of the most stunning music ever written, including Mozart’s heart-wrenching Requiem and Vaughan Williams’s spellbinding Mass in G Minor. And alongside both of these pieces, we’ll be presenting some shorter pieces of Renaissance polyphony from Scottish composers.
Mozart’s Requiem (1791) is an exceedingly popular work – indeed, it’s unlikely that anyone out there hasn’t heard its famous ‘Lachrymosa’ movement at least in the context of a film or two! Of course, Mozart died before this masterwork could be completed, and so a number of editions exist. While Franz Xaver Süssmayr’s completion (1792) tends to be the version most known to date, we’ll be performing Richard Maunder’s edition (1988), which does away with much of Süssmayr’s inventions, instead re-orchestrating movements and completing others based on a combination of manuscript sources and a rich knowledge of and deep appreciation for Mozart’s works. The result is a truly moving testament to music’s power to express fear, pain, suffering, and – eventually – release. We are delighted to be joined by the Borders Chamber Orchestra for this piece, as well as a team of four tremendous soloists in Rosie Lavery (Soprano), Catherine Backhouse (Mezzo), David Lee (Tenor), and Jonathan Kennedy (Bass).
As well as the Requiem, we’ll be performing Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Mass in G Minor (1921). Vaughan Williams sets the words of the mass using two four-part choirs, alongside a semi-chorus of soloists. This (amongst other things) enables Vaughan Williams to build some of the textures and harmonic features that listeners tend to know from earlier works, such as the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (1910). While Vaughan Williams is responsible for arranging some of the greatest hymn tunes we have to this day and for editing the English Hymnal, he was by no means a Christian. And yet, his approach to setting the words of the mass creates a passionate, powerful, and at times ethereal expression of devotion – to music, perhaps. Again, we are delighted that Rosie Lavery, Catherine Backhouse, David Lee, and Jonathan Kennedy will be providing our solo quartet.
From reading this post, you can probably tell that we’re very excited to be bringing you this music. And that’s true. Added to that, once again, it’s a joy to be rehearsing it and to be discovering these pieces together. For some members of the BCC, this has been the first time they’ve come into contact with Vaughan Williams’s Mass in G Minor – and judging by their reactions to it, audiences at the Melrose Music Festival are in for a treat!
Please visit https://www.melrosemusicfestival.co.uk/borders-chamber-choir-borders-chamber-orchestra to book your tickets.
As September fast approaches, so too does the newly re-launched Melrose Music Festival, at which we’re delighted to have been invited to perform. Not only does this give us a considerable platform in our first season as a choir; it also provides us with another opportunity to select an ambitious programme – and, of course, perform it to our customarily high standards. So please join us at Melrose Parish Church on 7 September for a programme packed with some of the most stunning music ever written, including Mozart’s heart-wrenching Requiem and Vaughan Williams’s spellbinding Mass in G Minor. And alongside both of these pieces, we’ll be presenting some shorter pieces of Renaissance polyphony from Scottish composers.
Mozart’s Requiem (1791) is an exceedingly popular work – indeed, it’s unlikely that anyone out there hasn’t heard its famous ‘Lachrymosa’ movement at least in the context of a film or two! Of course, Mozart died before this masterwork could be completed, and so a number of editions exist. While Franz Xaver Süssmayr’s completion (1792) tends to be the version most known to date, we’ll be performing Richard Maunder’s edition (1988), which does away with much of Süssmayr’s inventions, instead re-orchestrating movements and completing others based on a combination of manuscript sources and a rich knowledge of and deep appreciation for Mozart’s works. The result is a truly moving testament to music’s power to express fear, pain, suffering, and – eventually – release. We are delighted to be joined by the Borders Chamber Orchestra for this piece, as well as a team of four tremendous soloists in Rosie Lavery (Soprano), Catherine Backhouse (Mezzo), David Lee (Tenor), and Jonathan Kennedy (Bass).
As well as the Requiem, we’ll be performing Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Mass in G Minor (1921). Vaughan Williams sets the words of the mass using two four-part choirs, alongside a semi-chorus of soloists. This (amongst other things) enables Vaughan Williams to build some of the textures and harmonic features that listeners tend to know from earlier works, such as the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (1910). While Vaughan Williams is responsible for arranging some of the greatest hymn tunes we have to this day and for editing the English Hymnal, he was by no means a Christian. And yet, his approach to setting the words of the mass creates a passionate, powerful, and at times ethereal expression of devotion – to music, perhaps. Again, we are delighted that Rosie Lavery, Catherine Backhouse, David Lee, and Jonathan Kennedy will be providing our solo quartet.
From reading this post, you can probably tell that we’re very excited to be bringing you this music. And that’s true. Added to that, once again, it’s a joy to be rehearsing it and to be discovering these pieces together. For some members of the BCC, this has been the first time they’ve come into contact with Vaughan Williams’s Mass in G Minor – and judging by their reactions to it, audiences at the Melrose Music Festival are in for a treat!
Please visit https://www.melrosemusicfestival.co.uk/borders-chamber-choir-borders-chamber-orchestra to book your tickets.
