Chester Music Society Choir: Dreamers of Dreams at Chester Cathedral, Chester on Saturday 12th March 2016

Please note: This concert is in the past and has already taken place.

Chester Music Society Choir

Dreamers of Dreams

Part of the Chester Music Society 2015-2016 Season

Add to my Calendar 12-03-2016 19:30 12-03-2016 21:30 36 Chester Music Society Choir The Music Society choir presents a programme of three major English works, all unified by the theme of dreaming. The Music Makers is Elgar's last substantial work for chorus and orchestra. Its single movement clothes the words in unmistakable passion, greatly enhanced by the detailed and masterly orchestral comment. A E Housman's poems A Shropshire Lad present a profoundly-felt evocation of England whose nostalgic description of rural life and young men's early deaths struck a chord with English readers. They were set to music by George Butterworth, who himself was to die in action in August 1916. This concert includes a performance of “Loveliest of trees, the cherry now is hung with bloom along the bough.” William Walton's Belshazzar's Feast was first performed in 1931and has remained one of Walton's most celebrated compositions. It is based on texts from the Bible; primarily the Book of Daniel. The Jews are in exile in Babylon: the chorus and baritone sing of their homeland Zion, in an emotional setting ('By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down: yea, we wept'), and angrily express their bitterness toward their captors. After a feast at which Belshazzar, the Babylonian king, commits sacrilege by using the Jews' sacred vessels to praise the heathen gods, he is miraculously killed, the kingdom falls, and the Jews regain their freedom. The people celebrate their freedom, in a joyous song of praise interrupted by a lament over the fall of a great city. Chester Cathedral, Chester DD/MM/YYYY

Details

Chester Cathedral
Saint Werburgh Street
Chester
Cheshire
CH1 2DY
England

Saturday 12th March 2016
7:30 PM

Programme

Edward Elgar – The Music Makers, Op.69
William Walton – Belshazzar's Feast
George Butterworth – A Shropshire Lad (Rhapsody for Full Orchestra)

Performers

Margaret McDonald – mezzo-soprano
Quentin Hayes – baritone
Graham Jordan Ellis – Conductor

Chester Music Society Choir
Liverpool Sinfonia

Other concerts in this Series (+)

Programme Note

The Music Society choir presents a programme of three major English works, all unified by the theme of dreaming.

The Music Makers is Elgar's last substantial work for chorus and orchestra. Its single movement clothes the words in unmistakable passion, greatly enhanced by the detailed and masterly orchestral comment.

A E Housman's poems A Shropshire Lad present a profoundly-felt evocation of England whose nostalgic description of rural life and young men's early deaths struck a chord with English readers. They were set to music by George Butterworth, who himself was to die in action in August 1916. This concert includes a performance of “Loveliest of trees, the cherry now is hung with bloom along the bough.”

William Walton's Belshazzar's Feast was first performed in 1931and has remained one of Walton's most celebrated compositions. It is based on texts from the Bible; primarily the Book of Daniel. The Jews are in exile in Babylon: the chorus and baritone sing of their homeland Zion, in an emotional setting ('By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down: yea, we wept'), and angrily express their bitterness toward their captors. After a feast at which Belshazzar, the Babylonian king, commits sacrilege by using the Jews' sacred vessels to praise the heathen gods, he is miraculously killed, the kingdom falls, and the Jews regain their freedom. The people celebrate their freedom, in a joyous song of praise interrupted by a lament over the fall of a great city.

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