Birmingham Bach Choir: 2024 -25 Season of Concerts

Post

Subscribe

Sat 23 Nov 2024 - Sat 05 Jul 2025

Birmingham Bach Choir launches its 2024-2025 season with a concert at St Paul’s Church in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter on Saturday November 23, 2024. The performance, entitled The Rainbow Comes and Goes, features a carefully curated selection of rarely performed 20th-century English music by John Ireland, Benjamin Britten, Alan Rawsthorne and Richard Rodney Bennett, all of which have a broad ‘nature’ theme.



First performed in 1956, Four Seasonal Songs by Alan Rawsthorne (1905-1971) is based on the work of four late-16th/early-17th century poets, including Sir John Davies, poet and translator Joshua Sylvester and John Fletcher, who collaborated with Shakespeare and rivalled his fame.

Though perhaps best known for his piano miniatures and solo songs, the few choral pieces penned by John Ireland (1879-1962) demonstrate a deep understanding of the form. Among them are 1942’s Immortality and The Hills, which was Ireland’s contribution to A Garland For The Queen, a collection of commissions to mark the 1953 Coronation.

A pupil of Ireland’s at the Royal College Of Music, Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) was a giant of British 20th century music. Written for botanist friends in 1950, Five Flower Songs sets flower-themed verses by poets John Clare, Robert Herrick and George Crabbe to music

Concluding the evening is The Glory and the Dream by Richard Rodney Bennett (1936-2012). A spellbinding setting of William Wordsworth’s Ode: Intimations of Immortality (from Recollections of Early Childhood), it weaves childhood joy with an anxiety that comes with adulthood, and is widely considered Bennett’s choral masterpiece.



Paul Spicer , Birmingham Bach Choir's Musical Director (pictured above), said: "The choir is well-known for its mixture of programming and for exploring repertoire which is rarely sung by other choirs, especially in the Midlands.

“The Rainbow Comes and Goes is full of wonderful music, some of which rarely gets an outing. For example, Bennett’s biggest choral work is almost never heard, and yet he was one of the most versatile, popular and talented musicians of his generation. Rawsthorne, too, was a remarkable composer who has been temporarily eclipsed – as so often happens after someone’s death.

"It's great to be able to present these fascinating miniatures alongside Britten’s iconic partsongs, as well as the two pieces by Ireland which are less often heard than some of his other choral music. Both Ireland’s pieces are beautiful, but perhaps especially the haunting wistfulness of Immortality."



Further Birmingham Bach Choir concerts and activities in its 2024-2025 season include Service of Nine Lessons & Carols at St Alban’s, Highgate, Birmingham , on December 15, 2024, Come & Sing! Handel’s Coronation Anthems at Selly Oak Methodist Church , Birmingham, on February 1, 2025, Bach: B Minor Mass at Lichfield Cathedral on April 5, 2025, and Summer Concert at Malvern Priory on July 5, 2025.

For more information see birmingham.bachchoir.com


%wnbirmingham

#concerts
#music
#arts_culture
#classical_music
#choirs