Harrow Choral Society’s Summer Concert

Harrow Choral Society is looking forward to its Summer Concert.  Brahms’ German Requiem is a sublime and uplifting work which speaks to listeners of all faiths and none. Instead of setting the standard requiem liturgy of prayers for the dead, Brahms chose passages from the Lutheran Bible which the choir will sing in the original German. The requiem focuses on the experience of human life and in fact, Brahms had considered calling it Ein menschliches Requiem – a Human Requiem. The text is set to melodious and expressive music and some movements, such as Denn alles Fleisch, es ist wie Gras (For all Flesh is as Grass) and Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen (How Beautiful are thy Dwelling Places), have become well-known as anthems in their own right.

The choir will perform under the baton of Music Director Sam Evans, accompanied on the organ by Paul Ayres and by the Byron Ensemble. They will also be joined by soprano Eleanor Pennell-Briggs and baritone James Quilligan.
The programme will also feature anthems from the height of the English choral tradition: Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis in C by Charles Stanford, part of his Great Service, Opus 115, which the composer considered to be his finest liturgical setting, as well as works by Ernest Bullock and Edward Bairstow. The choir will reprise their performance of these anthems in an evensong service in the chapel of Queen’s College, Cambridge on Sunday 7th July.