BOOK NOW FOR YOUR TRIP TO THE STARS
With less than a week to go until Chandos' Christmas concert on Thursday 5 December, don't miss your chance to join us for this celebration of the heavens. As you can see from the photo, we are putting the final touches to our preparations. Following on from profiling our contemporary composers in our last issue, we're sharing here some of the pieces by our earlier composers. Book now to ensure you don't miss out.
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Celebrating the Renaissance
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Choir news item |
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No sub-type |
| Posted By: |
Karen Parkes |
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Current |
| Date Posted: |
Sat, 30 Nov 2024 |
The repertoire for Chandos’ Christmas concert spans several centuries of composition. At the earlier end of the spectrum, our programme includes Tomás Luis de Victoria’s setting of Conditor alme siderum. Victoria was a priest as well as an accomplished singer and organist, but his legacy is as the most famous Spanish Renaissance composer. This a seventh-century Advent hymn, rewritten by Pope Urban VIII in 1632, alternates between plainchant and polyphony and is known in English as Creator of the Stars of Night.
The carolling tradition is also well represented by Guillaume Costeley’s Allon Gay Bergeres, first published in 1567. This chanson imagines shepherdesses going to see the new-born king and bringing gifts.
Our programme also also includes a secular piece: Claudio Monteverdi’s Svogava con le stelle which recounts how a lovesick man implores the stars to communicate his passion to his beloved. This madrigal is performed in quite a different style from both the plainsong and polyphony of Victoria, and the chanson of Costeley – we hope that you enjoy the variety of styles we will embrace as we celebrate the heavens.
| A sneak peek of Chandos practising Eriks Ešenvalds' Stars |
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We've been taxing our brain power and coordination to manage to sing whilst playing our wine glasses (a bit like patting your head and rubbing your tummy), and the otherworldly sound of the tuned wine glasses is the perfect accompaniment to Eriks Ešenvalds' setting of Sara Teasdale's beautiful poem. Click here for a preview of what you can expect to hear on Thursday (only even better by then, of course).
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We hope you've enjoyed this newsletter. If you haven't received this newsletter direct but would like to keep up to date with Chandos news, please do subscribe via our website www.chandoschamberchoir.org.uk
BOOK NOW for your tickets for our Christmas concert
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