Details
St Mary's Church
Church Path
Saffron Walden
CB10 1JP
England
Programme
Antonin Dvorak – Six Moravian Choruses (arr. Janacek)
Antonin Dvorak – Stabat Mater, Op.58
Leoš Janáček – Elegy on the Death of Daughter Olga, JW 4/30
Josef Suk – Spring, Op.22a
Performers
Helena Moore – soprano
Ute Lepetit-Clare – Alto
Michael Bell – Tenor
Louis Wilson – Bass
Richard Wilberforce – Conductor
Cambridge University Symphony Chorus
Programme Note
The Symphony Chorus, under their new musical director Richard Wilberforce, present a concert of transportative Czech music including Janáček’s elegy for his beloved daughter and the original version of Dvořák’s Stabat Mater, composed after the death of his own daughter.
This concert celebrates Dvořák and his personal and compositional connections; the programme also features a work by Suk, Dvořák’s son-in-law, and a composition of Dvořák’s arranged by Janáček. Though each of these works is a beautiful evocation in its own right, it is the Stabat Mater, a powerful combination of personal and religious meditation on pain and grief, but also jubilation and consolation, which is truly the focal piece of this concert.