As spring turns to summer, we’ve got another eclectic collection of concerts for you, focusing on a range of more intimate music-making…
June 5th finds us returning to The Deanery of Christ Church, Oxford for a (re)creation of an imagined evening at the home of Lili and Nadia Boulanger in 1911: Salon! Music of the Belle Epoque. As two of the most influential composers of the twentieth century, their regular salons played host to some of the leading figures from the Belle Epoque to enjoy each other’s musical company and present some of their newest compositions years before they were ever published (if at all). We’ll be performing ensemble pieces and solo songs by the Boulanger sisters, Cecile Chaminade, Jane Vieu, Gabriel Faure, Camille Saint-Saens, and more.
We’ll be going back a further three hundred years for our concert on Thursday 5th July, Lamento della Ninfa. Pleasure and pain are present in equal parts in the love of the Italian madrigalists. Exquisite heartbreak and delicious torment, abandonment, sensuality, infidelity, joy and passion are squeezed into each lingering chord and each fleeting breath. In Somerville College Chapel we’ll present in an evening of songs and madrigals by Monteverdi, Casulana, Francesca Caccini and Marenzio.
We’ll be returning to the West Country for another concert in St Laurence’s Church, East Harptree on Sunday 29th July, titled Anguish of Hell; Peace of Soul. This programme takes its name from a collection of settings of Psalm 116 published in Germany in 1623, featuring some of the era’s standout composers. We’ll be presenting two of these alongside works with similar themes, including Bach’s Jesu, Meine Freude, which we performed in our very first concert.
We hope that there’s something for everyone in the coming months, and that we’ll see you there!
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