Le piano qui chante

• 13 November 2014 7:30pm
• St John's Smith Square London, SW1P 3HA

Just after Remembrance Day and one hundred years after the outbreak of the First World War, we present a programme of music associated with war. Tippett’s Five Spirituals, inspired by events in 1939, are a visceral and emotive cry for reconciliation. Butterworth’s lyrical idyll, The Banks of Green Willow, was written shortly before the composer’s death at the Somme. Requiem da Camera is Finzi’s setting of heartbreaking texts by Masefield, Hardy and Gibson: a poignant elegy to friends killed in action 1914-1918. Troubled times in Europe two centuries earlier inspired Haydn’s stirring response, Paukenmesse, permeated by ominous drumbeats and culminating in a potent prayer for peace.

Tippett: Five Spirituals from A Child of our Time
Butterworth: The Banks of Green Willow
Finzi: Requiem da Camera
Haydn: Mass in Time of War (Paukenmesse)

Hilary Davan Wetton, Conductor
London Mozart Players
Mary Nelson, Soprano
Wendy Dawn Thompson, Mezzo Soprano
Matthew Long, Tenor
William Berger, Baritone