Come to the historic and intimate setting of St Peter’s Church, Petersham, in the early evening of the third Sunday in Lent and enjoy an interlude of stillness and meditation as we perform choral classics a cappella from across Europe in the medieval and renaissance periods.
Members of the Petersham Consort, directed by Ben Driver, will sing sublime sacred music on Lenten themes spanning five centuries across the continent of Europe. We begin with Italian Renaissance composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525–1594), whose beautiful motet O crux ave is the fourth verse of the Latin Hymn Vexilla Regis, traditionally sung on Good Friday of Holy week. From the Elizabethan years in England we offer you another great work written for this sacred time of year, the Lamentations of Jeremiah, by Thomas Tallis (1505-1585). We continue with one of the most celebrated choral works of the late Renaissance period, famously sung in the Sistine Chapel during Holy week for many years, the legendary Miserere by Gregorio Allegri (1582-1652). By way of contrast with these dazzling works you will hear a hauntingly beautiful meditation from 12th century Italy, a setting for three female voices of the ancient text Benedicti e llaudati.
Our feature work is the exquisite Missa de la batalla escoutez by the astounding Spanish composer Francisco Guerrero (1528-1599), rightly heralded in the Renaissance as ‘the most extraordinary of his time in the art of music’, and illustrating well his masterly skills of expression and sublime melodic invention. It is a parody on the French composer Janequin's famous chanson La Guerre which was so popular in the 16th century that it led to numerous composers writing parody mass settings on it, of which the Missa de la batalla escoutez is one of the finest.
We invite you to stay for refreshments at the end of the concert. The Petersham Consort return to St Peter's on Sunday 23 June this year with lute songs and madrigals from England and Italy. You can follow us follow us on Twitter using @PConsort.
[image: Seville Cathedral chapterhouse vault © José Luis Filpo Cabana]