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Details
St John's Church
5 St John's Road
Southdown
Harpenden
Hertfordshire
AL5 1DJ
England
Programme
William Harris – Faire is the heaven
Hubert Parry – Lord, Let me know mine end
Felix Mendelssohn – Denn er hat seinen Engeln befohlen, MWV B 53
Maurice Duruflé – Four motets on Gregorian themes, Op.10
Herbert Howells – Requiem
Performers
Benjamin Kirk – Conductor
Lea Singers
Programme Note
In an age that rushes forward, tonight we offer refuge in stillness, reverence, and radiant choral sound. Our programme explores Romantic music for double choir, much of it meditating on grief and loss while reaching defiantly toward the divine.
Harris’s Faire is the Heaven opens with a vision of the afterlife, glowing like stained glass. Parry’s Lord, let me know Mine End, his final work, weighs mortality with two choirs seeking solace from one another.
Mendelssohn’s serene Denn er hat seinen Engeln befohlen shines in contrast, a prayer of protection, before Duruflé’s Four Motets weave Gregorian chant with lush French harmonies.
We close with Howells’s Requiem, born of devastating loss yet shimmering with ethereal dissonances — not a work of death, but of grief’s long echo.
An evening of sanctuary and transcendent sound.
