Don’t forget to pick up a copy of the latest Music @ Saint Bartholomew’s magazine!  This issue is packed with articles and photos of the choirs’ various activities and events over the past (almost!) two years, including full reports on the boys’ trip to Belfast in May 2017 and the girls’ trip to Vienna in December 2017.  Our assistant director of music, Dr. Andrew Johnstone, has also contributed an extremely well researched piece on how church music survived the Tudor reform.  The magazines are available at the back of the church.

The Gaudete Singers return to Saint Bartholomew’s on Saturday, 10 March at 8.00pm for Songs of Farewell: Music by Parry, Stanford, and Wood.  The concert will be directed by David Leigh and will feature music to mark both the centenary of Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry’s death in October 1918 and the end of the Great War in November 1918.

Tickets are available at the door for €15, €10 concession, and €5 for students with ID.  Included in the ticket price is a glass of wine or soft drink after the show.

Programme:

Songs of Farewell                               C Hubert H Parry (1848 – 1918)
Justorum animae                                Charles Villiers Stanford (1852 – 1924)
Coelos ascendit hodie                        Charles Villiers Stanford
Beati quorum via                                Charles Villiers Stanford
Hail gladdening light                           Charles Wood (1866 – 1926)
Nunc Dimittis                                      Charles Wood

Parry, along with many of his generation, was devastated by the huge loss of young life during the war. For Parry, who held German music and its traditions in the highest esteem, it was especially agonising to see the war decimate the population of up-and-coming composing talents at London’s Royal College of Music.

Most of the Songs of Farewell were written in 1915, and the first performance of five of the six motets was in May 1916. Sadly, Parry did not live long enough to hear the entire set performed as a group; he died of influenza in October 1918. One of his motets— There is an old belief—was sung at his funeral at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, where he is buried.

Parry’s Songs of Farewell are widely acknowledged as masterpieces of unaccompanied choral writing and are a fitting tribute to commemorate the centenary of the end of the Great War.

We hope you’ll come to soak up the sounds of this masterful music in our beautifully refurbished church!