Leonardo | Harrogate Choral Society

In 'Leonardo dreams of his flying machine', the composer Eric Whitacre and poet Charles Anthony Silvestri aim to conceptualize the sublime thoughts of the Renaissance genius Leonardo da Vinci, an artist but also a visionary whose mind conceived terrible engines of war such as tanks, but also flying machines.

Vivaldi’s 'The Four Seasons' is the best known of his works which were a revolution in musical conception: Vivaldi represented flowing creeks, singing birds (of different species, each specifically characterized), a shepherd and his barking dog, buzzing flies, storms, drunken dancers, hunting parties from both the hunters’ and the prey’s point of view, frozen landscapes, and warm winter fires.

The final work, Cecilia McDowell’s 'Da Vinci Requiem', presents an imaginative pairing of extracts from the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci with texts from the Latin Missa pro defunhtis.