The Chiswick Choir Spring Concert

Purcell and Handel feature in 'I Was Glad' a programme of Baroque music

Chiswick Choir's Spring concert, I Was Glad, takes place on Saturday 1 April at St Michael and All Angels Church in Bedford Park.

In her second year as Musical Director of the Chiswick Choir, Hilary Campbell leads this programme of Baroque music featuring Handel’s ‘Te Deum’, celebrating George II’s return from victory at the battle of Dettingen. Handel as “Composer of the Musick to the Chapel Royal” was commissioned to write a Te Deum and the ‘King Shall Rejoice’ anthem. George had led the English Army into battle (the last English monarch to do so) with their Hanoverian and other allies against the French.

The Dettingen ‘Te Deum’ goes far beyond the early Christian prayer of thanksgiving with its fourteen dramatic solos and choruses and vibrant orchestral accompaniment.

The second half of the concert opens with Purcell’s ‘I Was Glad’, written for the coronation of James II in 1685 and then continues with ‘O Sing Unto the Lord’, a very Italianate piece with a glorious antiphony between voices and instruments and between solo bass and chorus.

The final work is the seldom performed anthem ‘Praise the Lord, O My Soul, O Lord my God’. It opens with a fine violin and continuo symphony before a bass and then tenor solo declaim the Psalm text with the choir offering choral praise.

Programme

Dettingen Te Deum Handel
INTERVAL
I Was Glad Purcell
Praise the Lord, O My Soul, O Lord my God Purcell
O Sing Unto the Lord Purcell

Alto Clara Kanter
Tenor Peter Harris
Bass Chris Webb
Organ Benedict Lewis Smith
Orchestra Led by Katie Thomas
Musical Director Hilary Campbell

The Spring concert is the first time that the recently appointed Choral Scholars will be singing with the choir. This initiative is giving the SATB sections exemplars on singing as well as giving young aspiring professional singers an opportunity to broaden their choral experience.

Details from enquiries@chiswickchoir.org.uk and tickets from www.ticketsource.co.uk/chiswickchoir.

March 25, 2017