The Elgar Chorale return to Barbourne with a programme of Haydn and Mozart.
Worcester’s well known chamber choir, The Elgar Chorale is performing its major summer concert closing the season in the magnificent surroundings of St George’s Church, Barbourne and it promises to be a wonderful occasion in magnificent surroundings with performances of Haydn’s Nelson Mass and Mozart’s Vesperae solennes de confessore. The Chorale is joined by young soloists from the Royal Academy of Music in London and accompanied by an orchestra of members of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.
Composed in 1798, the Nelson Mass (Missa in angustiis) was first performed on September 23rd of that year and is Haydn’s largest mass, as well as one of his most beloved choral/orchestral works. It is also his only minor-key mass, set in D minor at the opening, but leading to a victorious D major finale. In the original version the orchestra did not include woodwinds--Prince Esterhazy had dismissed the wind players to fight in the war--and the use of three trumpets and timpani in the accompaniment creates a military feel, perhaps influencing its name: this is what you will hear.
Mozart’s setting of the five Vespers psalms and a concluding Magnificat, written in 1780 for an unnamed saint’s day, is Mozart’s last church music for Salzburg; it dates from about the same time as the Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola and the Coronation Mass. Scored for SATB (chorus and soloists) and a modest orchestra, it is much-loved for its mellifluous soprano solos, particularly the famous, sublimely beautiful Laudate Dominum for soprano and chorus, a piece that was so popular in the nineteenth century that it suffered all kinds of popular arrangements for different combinations of instruments, much like the Pachelbel Canon in our time. It is indeed joyous choral writing and is a model of concise expressiveness.