Music Inspired by Love Poetry

Epsom Chamber Choir’s next concert on November 7th is of music inspired by love poetry. All the works are sacred pieces, but lyrics and ancient poems of love and longing have been their starting points. The concert will feature compositions written in the sixteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

The longest work in the programme is the sixteenth century composer John Taverner’s “Western Wynde Mass” in which he took the tune of a well-known love lyric, distributed it through the voice parts of the movements of the Mass as a cantus firmus, and surrounded it with glorious polyphony.  This was the first Mass by an English composer to be based on a secular melody.

Love will also be celebrated in beautiful settings of texts taken from the Biblical “Song of Songs”. The choir will be singing Clemens non Papa’s motet “Ego flos campi” from 1550, and from the twentieth century Bairstow’s “I sat down under his shadow”, and William Walton’s “Set me as a seal”. Four contemporary composers also feature in the programme: Howard Skempton, Eleanor Daley and Epsom Chamber Choir’s own Helen Williams who all inspire us with their music responding to texts from the Song of Songs, and Kerensa Briggs’ composition “Ubi caritas” gathers us together to where love is.

This will be the highly regarded Epsom Chamber Choir’s first concert under the direction of their new conductor, Patrick Allies, who has a particular interest and expertise in Renaissance and contemporary choral music. He said: “I’m really thrilled to have been appointed as Epsom Chamber Choir’s new conductor and it seemed fitting to launch into an emotional programme for my first concert with them. The programme is sacred but also filled with beautiful romantic messages.”

The audience can look forward to hearing these gems of pieces celebrating love in the glorious acoustic of St. Martin’s Church, Epsom.

Time and Place:  7.30pm, Saturday 7th November, St Martin’s Church, Epsom KT17 4PX

Advance Tickets:  £18 From www.epsomchamberchoir.org.uk

On the day Tickets: £21

Under 21’s free