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Details
St Mary-le-Bow Church
Cheapside
City of London
London
EC2V 6AU
England
Programme
Zoltán Kodály – Missa Brevis
Herbert Howells – Rhapsody no.3 in C sharp minor, Op.31
Cecilia McDowall – Standing as I do before God
Benjamin Britten – The Ballad of Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard
Heinrich Schütz – Ich weiss, dass mein Erlöser lebt, SWV 393
Heinrich Schütz – So fahr ich hin zu Jesu Christ, SWV 379
Heinrich Schütz – Selig sind die Toten, SWV 391
Performers
Stephen Jones – Conductor
Nicholas Freestone – organ
City Chamber Choir
Programme Note
In Time of War features music encompassing a kaleidoscope of emotions, forged during the heat of armed conflict.
At the height of the siege of Budapest in 1945, Kodály had taken refuge in the cellar of the Budapest Opera House, where he completed his dramatic and passionate Missa Brevis. Schütz wrote his collection of Geistliche Chormusik during the Thirty Years’ War as a legacy to future young composers, in the belief that his world was about to be utterly destroyed. In 1918, Howells’ turbulent Third Rhapsody for organ was written in a single night during a Zeppelin raid over York. Standing as I do before God by CCC President, Cecilia McDowall is, as the composer says, a reflection on the eve of Edith Cavell’s death, 12 October 1915. Britten’s scintillating Ballad of Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard was written for, and first performed by, British prisoners of war in Germany.
There is much beauty and profundity to be experienced in this programme of music shaped and overshadowed by war.
