FCMG and FCS present a wide-ranging programme of British sacred and secular music of the last 120 years. In the centenary year of FCMG’s Founding President, Benjamin Britten, the programme includes five of his works, extending from Hymn to the Virgin and Te Deum in C, both published in 1934, to the Missa Brevis which he composed in 1959 for George Malcolm and Westminster Cathedral. We also include Finzi’s God Is Gone Up, another work from the 1950s, and I Was Glad, the setting of Psalm 122 which Parry composed for the coronation of Edward VII. The secular strand of the programme includes Britten’s three Two-part Songs, early settings of poems by Walter de la Mare, and Elgar’s The Snow, an early setting of a poem by his wife Alice, as well as two recent works – James MacMillan’s setting of Robert Burns’ The Gallant Weaver, commissioned by Paisley University and premièred in 1997, and Richard J Harvey’s setting of Walt Whitman’s On the Beach at Night, commissioned by FCS and premièred by them in 2011. In addition to settings of poems the concert includes two settings by Andrew Carter of traditional songs and Vaughan Williams’ Five English Folksongs.
Tickets available now from www.sjss.org.uk priced £20/£15/£12/£8
