Bernstein:CHICHESTER PSALMS
Carl Orff: CARMINA BURANA

Durham Cathedral
7 30 p.m.

Bach: MAGNIFICAT
Albinoni: OBOE CONCERTO
Beethoven: MASS in C

Beethoven's  Mass in C composed in 1807 at the request of Prince Nicholas Esterhazy, Haydn's patron,often suffers by comparison with the later and larger scale Missa Solemnis but it is also a work expressing his deepest personal conviction. As such this work, performed in the incomparable setting of Durham cathedral, makes an awesome impact.

Elvet Methodist Church, Durham
7 30 p.m.

 

FESTIVE BRASS AND VOICES

Durham Choral Society
&
Durham University Brass Band in Residence
Reg Vardy Band

Conductors: Richard Brice & Ray Farr

Come along and join us for an evening of carols and popular classics to kick start Christmas!

Programme will include:

Zadok the Priest
Hallelujah Chorus
Festive Music for Brass and Voices
Festive carols with audience participation

 

 

Saturday 21st May 2005

at Durham Cathedral

Karl Jenkins
THE ARMED MAN
Constant Lambert
THE RIO GRANDE
Maxwell Davies
THE KESTREL ROAD

The second concert combines works in a variety of idioms.
The major work is Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace. This was commissioned by the Royal Armouries to mark the millennium and is dedicated to the victims of Kosovo in the struggles of the nineties. The composer is well known for his various Adiemus compositions. Pieces from Adiemus and The Armed Man have been popular requests on Classic FM radio for a few years now.
Constant Lambert, the centenary of whose birth is celebrated this year, composed Rio Grande in 1928. This work established him as a leading composer of his day, but alas this promise was cut short by his untimely death in 1951 at the age of forty-six.
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies recently celebrated his seventieth birthday and Making Music, whose president he is, commissioned this work from him in honour of that occasion. The work for piano and choir was given its first performance in September 2004.

Conductor: Richard Brice
Durham Choral Society reserves the right to change programmes and/or artists should circumstances so necessitate.

 

Saturday 29th January 2005

at Durham Cathedral

Brahms
REQUIEM
Dvorák
TE DEUM

The first concert in this season comprises two works of the Romantic period, one very well known and one of a well-known composer’s less familiar works.
Brahms German Requiem is not the normal setting of the Latin rite Requiem Mass but a collection of passages from the Lutheran Bible expressing comfort and encouragement to the mourner rather than prayers for the souls of the departed.
Dvorak composed his Te Deum to mark the quatercentenary of the discovering of America by Columbus in 1492 and it was given its premiere in the States during his American visit. It has been described as ‘a strikingly original work – perhaps the most felicitous contribution that Dvorak made to religious music.

Soloists : Katherina Leitgeb, Gavin Carr
Conductor: Richard Brice

Durham Choral Society reserves the right to change programmes and/or artists should circumstances so necessitate.

Saturday 22nd May 2004

at Durham Cathedral

Haydn
NELSON MASS
Will Todd
TRUMPET CONCERTO
Will Todd
GLORIA (new commission)

The second concert combines an old established favourite with two new works.
Haydn's ninth mass setting is known by three different names. It was written in 1798 and was originally called the 'Mass in time of peril'. During its composition news of Nelson's victory over the French at Aboukir Bay arrived and eventually the name Nelson or Imperial became attached to it. Vaughn Williams, shortly before his death, said that hearing this Mass was one of the most moving experiences of his old age.

In contrast, Durham born composer, Will Todd, already well known for his oratorio St Cuthbert and several other works premiered in the north-east will conduct his Trumpet Concerto. This will be followed by a newly commissioned setting of the Gloria, receiving its world premiere at this performance.

Soloists will include Bethany Halliday and Ben Alden.
Conductors: Richard Brice & Will Todd

Feedback on Gala and Gloria can be read here.

 

Saturday 31st January 2004

at Durham Cathedral
ELGAR
The Dream of Gerontius

The first concert in this season is one of the best-loved large scale choral works, despite a very uncertain reception at its first performance in Birmingham just over a hundred years ago. It was not until two years later at a performance in Germany that the oratorio made headway in its native land, Richard Strauss toasting 'the first English proressivist musician, Meister Elgar'.
Although Elgar was to compose other choral works later, he wrote on the last page of the score of Gerontius 'this is the best of me'. There are few lovers of choral music who would dispute this statement as they hear the combination of Cardinal Newman's words and Elgar's music.

Soloists : Sally Burchell, Jason Darnell, Adrian Powter.
Conductor: Richard Brice

Durham Choral Society reserves the right to change programmes and/or artists should circumstances so necessitate.

 

Saturday 10th May 2003

at Durham Cathedral

Faure
REQUIEM MASS
Poulenc
ORGAN CONCERTO
Bizet
TE DEUM

The second concert brings together an organ concerto and two choral works by three very different French composers.
Bizet is so consciously linked with opera in the minds of most people that this joyful Te Deum dating from his twentieth year comes almost as a surprise.

Utilising the magnificent Cathedral organ, the Poulenc concerto dating from 1938 will feature James Lancelot as the soloist.

The programme is completed by Faure’s setting of the Requiem Mass, surely the best loved of all such settings. We will be giving this work in its 1893 version.

Soloists: Yvette Bonner, James Arthur, James Lancelot (Organ)

Conductor: Richard Brice

Saturday 1st February 2003

at Durham Cathedral

Beethoven

MISSA
SOLEMNIS

The first concert in this season is one of the pinnacles of choral music. Surely the greatest choral masterpiece after Bach’s B minor Mass must be this monumental work by Beethoven produced in the latter part of the composer’s career. It dates from the last decade of Beethoven’s life. He began it in 1818, intending it to be ready for the installation of Archduke Rudolf as Archbishop of Olmutz in 1820, but it was not complete until 1824. The Viennese audience heard three movements of the Mass in the same concert as the premiere of the equally monumental Ninth Symphony.
An anonymous acquaintance of the composer wrote, ‘this is a work of eternity’.

Soloists: Jennifer Smith, Alison Kettlewell, Joseph Cornwell and Simon Kirkbride

Conductor: Richard Brice

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Saturday 18th May 2002

Elgar:
ENIGMA VARIATIONS

Vaughan Williams:
A SEA SYMPHONY

at Durham Cathedral

The final concert of the season brings together an orchestral work and a choral work by two great English composers.
Elgar’s work first heard in 1899 contains the puzzle of the friends “pictured within” but also the as yet unanswered enigma itself.
In the Sea Symphony, Vaughan Williams, former patron of this society, sets to stirring music the poetry of Walt Whitman reflecting the varying moods of the sea and the vessels that sail thereon.

Soloists: Joanne Dexter and Jeremy Huw Williams
Conductor: Richard Brice

Saturday 26th January 2002

at Durham Cathedral

MOZART
Kyrie in D minor
Horn Concerto No 2
Requiem Mass

One of Mozart’s shorter pieces, but nonetheless the work of the great master, the Kyrie in D minor begins an all Mozart programme which includes one of the horn concertos and the incomplete masterpiece, the setting of the Requiem Mass. The story of the commissioning of this work although now fairly well known can still bring a tingle of mystery as the cloaked and masked figure is contemplated knocking at the door of the soon to die composer.

Soloists : Rachel Nicholls, Louise Mott, Colin Lee, Simon Kirkbride and Janus Wadsworth
Conductor: Richard Brice

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Registered Charity (No. 514557)

last updated: August 23, 2007