SPRING CONCERT March 28th, 2020: Pascoe, Brahms and Mendelssohn
Monday 3rd February, 2020
Brahms,
Mendelssohn, Pascoe
7:30pm Saturday 28 March 2020 Truro Cathedral
Brahms: Alto Rhapsody
– Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit – Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen
Mendelssohn: Hear my prayer - Overture to St. Paul
Russell Pascoe: Secular Requiem
Our concert in March is a big one. Three Spires Singers and Orchestra will join forces with Truro Cathedral Choir and two top-flight professional soloists – Catherine Wyn-Rogers and Paul Carey Jones – to perform the Secular Requiem by Russell Pascoe, along with beautiful music by Mendelssohn and Brahms.
Russell’s Requiem was commissioned by Three Spires Singers and had its first performance in Truro in March 2013. Such was the impact of this occasion that there was unanimous determination that we had to do it again, soon, while the music was still fresh in our minds, and moreover that we should take the work to a London audience for its second performance. Thanks to a remarkable feat of ambition and organisation the whole choir appeared at Cadogan Hall in November 2013 alongside the London Musicians Orchestra and soloists Catherine Wyn-Rogers and Stephen Roberts who had been with us in March. This tells you everything you need to know about how strongly we responded to Russell's music and to the text assembled by Tony Pinching.
You can read about the Secular Requiem in words from the piece by the composer below. I won’t add anything to except to say that this is a work that says something truly distinctive and original through music that is accessible and has great depth. I suspect it will be an exceptionally memorable and powerful performance and I am personally looking forward to directing the combined choral forces of the cathedral choir and Three Spires Singers.
In the first half, we will open with the arresting overture from Mendelssohn’s oratorio ‘St Paul’. As well as the chance to hear Catherine Wyn-Rogers performing Brahms’s Alto Rhapsody, there will be Mendelssohn’s ‘Hear my prayer’ (with its iconic solo “O, for the wings of a dove”), and two movements from the Brahms Requiem.
Broadcaster and journalist Bel Mooney came to the Truro performance and was powerfully moved - read her review to whet your appetite for our March 2020 performance. How lucky we are that Catherine Wyn-Rogers can join us again for this concert (along with Paul Carey Jones): it's going to be very special indeed.
Christopher Gray
Soloists - Catherine Wyn-Rogers is an international star of opera, concert performances and award-winning recordings who has performed with most of the most prestigious orchestras, from the Vienna Philharmonic to the London Symphony Orchestra. Bass Baritone Paul Carey Jones is a young rising star who made his Royal Opera House debut in 2016 and was Joint Winner of the 2013 Wagner Society Singing Competition. The Observer newspaper described him as “vocally magisterial”
Other works being performed will be music by Mendelssohn: the exhilarating Overture to his oratorio St Paul and the famous piece for soprano, choir and orchestra Hear my Prayer – stand by for the eternally popular O for the Wings of a Dove which forms the climax!
There will also be music by Brahms: the wonderful Alto Rhapsody for contralto, chorus and orchestra, and two sections of his German Requiem, Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen and Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit, which feature two of the most beautiful tunes ever written.
