Saturday 15 November 2025, 7:30pm
St Albans Cathedral
St Albans St Cecilia Festival Society concert
Aeolian Singers
Radlett Choir
St Albans Chamber Choir
The Hardynge Choir
St Albans Symphony Orchestra
Stabat Mater - Dvořák
Magnificat (Collegium Regale) - Howells
Hear My Prayer - Mendelssohn
William Democratis - Treble
Erin Rossington - Soprano
Angharad Rowlands - Mezzo-soprano
Robert Watson - Tenor
Emyr Wyn Jones - Bass-baritone
Bill Carslake - Conductor
Tickets: £28, £22, £16, £10 (sides), £5 (students), and £1 (children)
Tickets may be purchased from St Albans Cathedral box office www.stalbanscathedral.org, 01727 890290,
or in person in the Visitor Centre.
Antonín Dvořák was a Czech composer who frequently employed rhythms and other aspects of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia, following the nationalist example of his predecessor Bedřich Smetana. Dvořák's Stabat Mater, Op. 58 (B. 71), is an extended setting for vocal soloists, choir and orchestra of the 20 stanzas of the Stabat Mater sequence. Dvořák sketched the composition in 1876 and completed it in 1877. It has been characterized as a sacred cantata and as an oratorio, and consists of ten movements of which only the first and the last are thematically connected. Dvořák's setting of Stabat Mater, his first religious piece, was premiered in Prague in 1880. However, after it was performed and very well received at the Royal Albert Hall in London on 10 March 1883, its success sparked off a whole series of performances in England and the United States.
Herbert Howells was an English composer, organist, and teacher, most famous for his large output of Anglican church music. Collegium Regale is a collection of choral settings written between 1944 and 1956 "for the King's College, Cambridge" (Collegium Regale in Latin). It consists of the Magnificat (Song of Mary) and Nunc dimittis (Song of Simeon). Mary sings the Magnificat ("My soul doth magnify the Lord") on the occasion of her visit to Elizabeth, as narrated in the Gospel of Luke (Luke 1:39–56). Simeon sings the Nunc dimittis ("Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace") when Jesus is presented in the temple (Luke 2:29–32). Howells's Collegium Regale evening canticles are among his best-known works and noted for their use of choral voices. 
Felix Mendelssohn was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn's best known biblical oratorio Elijah (1846), was greatly influenced by J.S. Bach. Mendelssohn also wrote many smaller-scale sacred choral works. Among the most famous is Hear My Prayer, whose second half contains "O for the Wings of a Dove", which has often been performed as a separate item.
