The Best Guide for the NE17 Area

BEAUTIFUL BAROQUE

Author: hawkarine

Published: 11th October 2011 14:32

FIRST CONCERT OF THE 2011/2012 SEASON

Saturday 29th October 2011
at
ST MARK'S CHURCH, BROOMHILL, SHEFFIELD
S10 2SE

Sheffield Bach Society kicks off its 2011/2012 season with the National Festival Orchestra at St Mark's Church Broomhill, pretty well adjacent to the Royal Hallamshire Hospital.

The programme comprises music bidding fair to the title BEAUTIFUL BAROQUE and features the celebrated D minor Oboe Concerto played by Rosie Crook.

This instrumental/orchestral interlude will provide the hard-working Sheffield Bach Society singers from one of England's most famous adult choirs a welcome respite in a programme of intensive and glorious music-making!

 

Famously, the evening includes both the lovely Magnificat attributed to, but almost certainly not composed be, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi and the hugely loved Gloria from the pen of the "red priest", Antonio Vivaldi. The three remaining works are by Handel and each was written outwith the boundaries of his native Germany.

From his London sojourn - he came to our English Capital to live in 1712, working in turn for the Duke of Chandos, King George the First and King George the Second - come two works very rarely-heard. The Anthem on the Peace from 1749 contains some much-loved music from Messiah of 1742 re-cycled for a specific occasion, while I will magnify Thee is one of a number of anthems the composer wrote for the Choir and Orchestra of His Majesty's Chapel Royal - again one segment from the Messiah music is included.

The evening ends with what is arguably one of the most brilliant choral works of all time, Handel's magical setting of Dixit Dominus written in Rome in 1707 almost certainly for performance at Vespers in the Church of our Lady of Mount Carmel. Picture the composer arriving in the Italian capital when just out of his teens and introduced into the heady company of the finest singers in the world - is it perhaps any wonder that he rose so magnificently to the challenge of composing such simply glorious music?

Soloists are led by Jenny Leadbeater, the Sheffield-based soprano, her colleague Claire Strafford from Thirsk and Leeds-based alto Kathryn Woodruff. Rising young stars tenor Toby Ward and Bass Philip Wilcox make up the solo line up. Toby and Phil are based in Leeds and Bradford respectively - Toby is Principal Tenor in the Choir of Leeds Parish Church and Phil, now very well known as a bass baritone throughout the country, directs the "Sing up" children's choral initiative for Bradford Cathedral.

Sheffield Bach Choir conductor Dr Simon Lindley directs from the harpsichord and chamber organ and Sally Robinson leads the National Festival Orchestra.

The concert has been very generously sponsored by Dr Alan Brown, for many years the distinguished and hugely-valued accompanist to Sheffield Bach Choir, who retired recently. A former Reader in Music in the University of Sheffield, Dr Brown's contribution to music-making in South Yorkshire has been immense and Sheffield Bach Choir is thrilled that he has chosen to mark his retirement by sponsoring the first concert of our new season.

 

 

 

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