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Details
SJE Arts - St John the Evangelist Church
109A Iffley Road
Oxford
Oxfordshire
OX4 1EH
England
Programme
Knut Nystedt – O Crux
William Harris – Love of love and Light of light (1934)
Hubert Stanley Middleton – Let my prayer be set forth
Reginald Tustin Baker – Be Thou my Guardian
Uros Krek – Psalmo XLII (1991)
Frank Ferko – Motet for Passion Sunday
Bern Herbolsheimer – Seven last words
Alberto Ginastera – Lamentations of Jeremiah
Svein Møller – Ave Verum Corpus (1996)
Performers
Matthew Berry – choral director
Commotio
Programme Note
Commotio welcomes back their director, Matthew Berry who has curated a superb selection of choral rarities from America, Norway, Slovenia, and Britain.
Although the English choral tradition may seem like a well-known field of repertoire, Matthew has discovered three rarely performed eight-part 20th century motets, including Middleton’s ingenious canon ‘Let my prayer be set forth’, and Tustin Baker’s ‘Be thou my Guardian’ (of which we can find no reference of a previous concert performance).
Ginestera’s ‘Lamentation of Jeremiah’ and Herbolsheimer’s ‘Seven last words’ both evoke a wide range of emotion with their use of chromaticism and choral suspension, encompassing the anguish, sorrow and acceptance of their texts. Ferko’s Motet for Passion Sunday (recorded by Commotio in 2007) and Nystedt’s magnificent ‘O Crux’ both employ dense choral textures with ethereal tranquillity belying their technical challenge.
Join Commotio for a concert of exceptional music, unlikely to be heard elsewhere!
