Registered Charity No. 1049352
Next Concert
Saturday 31 March 2012 at 7:30 pm
High Street Methodist Church, Harpenden
An English Serenade
Parry: I was glad
Elgar: Serenade for Strings
Elgar: Ave Verum Corpus
Vaughan Williams: Five Tudor Portraits
Alto and Baritone soloists
A school choir
Organist/Pianist
Paean Orchestra
Conducted by Rufus Frowde
Tickets: £12 Unreserved, £6 Under 16s.
Call: 0845 475 1664 or download Ticket Order Form
Parry's I was glad was written for the coronation of King Edward VII and revised in 1911 for that of King George V, when the familiar introduction was added. This setting employs antiphonal choir effects and brass fanfares. The text of the anthem consists of verses from Psalm 122, mostly a prayer for the peace and prosperity of Jerusalem, and its use in the coronation service clearly draws a parallel between Jerusalem and the United Kingdom.
Elgar's Serenade for Strings, is a piece for string orchestra in three short movements. It was written in March 1892 and is believed to be a reworking of a suite Elgar had written some years earlier. It has a youthful charm, yet displays the skills Elgar developed later, and is reportedly the first of his compositions with which he professed himself satisfied.
Elgar's Ave Verum Corpus was arranged in 1902 as a setting for full choir and organ of Pie Jesu, originally written in 1887 for the funeral of a family friend. Poignantly, it was sung many years later, to honour the death of the composer himself.
Vaughan Williams' Five Tudor Portraits came about as a suggestion from Elgar, who
said he really should investigate the poetry of the Tudor poet John Skelton. It
was written for mezzo-
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