The Chandos Singers, conducted by Malcolm Hill, are one of Bath’s leading chamber choirs. Their most recent concert, Smuggled from Europe, took place in Magdalen Chapel in April, and featured choral works smuggled from Europe into England, including Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, music brought back from the Battles of Fréteval and Agincourt, settings of texts from the Aeneid, and a seventeenth century magician’s secret.
This concert of European works focuses on Henry Purcell (1659-1695), covering his own works together with pieces by composers who influenced him or who were influenced by him.
The Purcell works included are the Te Deum written for St Cecilia’s Day in 1694, O sing unto the Lord of 1688, and Jehova quam multi sunt hostes of c1680.
Music which influenced Purcell includes Super Flumina Babilonis by his near contemporary Michel-Richard de Lalande (1657-1726); the English motets of his teacher (and spy) John Blow, represented here by My days are gone like a shadow; Henry Du Mont’s Deposuit of 1630; O Maria Mater gratiae by Giovanni Battista Crivelli, published in 1626; and Congratulamini mihi omnes by Étienne Moulinié (1599-1676).
Although Purcell’s music was totally ignored within ten years of his death, his particular method of matching music to a text was later to be seen in Michael Tippett’s Magnificat of 1961.
The programme is completed by Paul Feldwick’s A Part of the Main.
The concert will be held in the serene surroundings of the Magdalen Chapel on Holloway, Bath. A chapel is known to have existed on this site in the 11th century, and a leper hospital was built close by in the 12th. Both were under the care of the Abbey monks. The current building is 15th century. Despite severe bomb damage in 1942, it remains an active centre of worship.
Interval refreshments will be available.