Thursday 21 June, 7pm
St Giles-without-Cripplegate
Storm and Refuge
2018 Festival Programme
Swords & Ploughshares:
marking one hundred years since the end of WWI
Storm and Refuge
Thursday 21 June, 7.30pm
St Giles-without-Cripplegate
Tickets £20 (includes interval glass of wine)
The festival opens with Elgar’s defiant pre-WWI psalm settings, giving way to the consoling and ethereal Requiem by Duruflé. Holst’s exquisite Nunc dimittis of 1915 completes the programme.
Artists:
City of London Choir
Marta Fontanals-Simmons, mezzo soprano
Mark Williams, organ
Bozidar Vukotic, cello
Hilary Davan Wetton, conductor
Programme:
Elgar Great is the Lord
Elgar Give unto the Lord
Holst Nunc dimittis
Duruflé Requiem
How are the mighty fall’n
Friday 22 June, 7.00pm
St Mary-le-Bow
Tickets £20 (includes interval glass of wine)
A secular Remembrance programme presented by the acclaimed and innovative brass ensemble Septura.
Septura brings together London’s leading players to redefine brass chamber music through the uniquely expressive sound of the brass septet by creating a canon of transcriptions, arrangements and new commissions for this brand new classical configuration (‘brilliantly done’ The Observer).
Inspired by the strong battlefield associations of brass instruments, Septura’s focus is the mortal aspect of armed conflict, reflecting themes of heroism, sacrifice and grief.
Artists:
Septura Brass Septet
Programme:
Brahms Geistliches Lied
Handel Suite from Rinaldo
Parry Songs of farewell (selection)
Shostakovich Quartet No.8
After you've gone: Weimar Cabaret and Prohibition songs
Saturday 23 June, 7.30pm
St Bartholomew the Great
Tickets £20 (includes interval glass of wine)
A rousing programme of fabulous cabaret songs celebrating the post-WWI era. With music by Kurt Weill, Friedrich Hollaender, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, George Gershwin and many more.
The Steinway Model D Piano is used by kind permission of City Music Society.
Artists:
Mary Carewe, soprano
Harry the Piano
Programme:
Elgar Great is the Lord
Elgar Give unto the Lord
Holst Nunc dimittis
Duruflé Requiem
Choral Evensong at St Bride's
Sunday 24th June, 5.30pm
St Bride's, Fleet Street
No admission charge
Artists:
The Choir of St Bride’s, Fleet Street
Robert Jones, Director of Music
Matthew Morley, organ
Programme:
Dyson Evening Service in D
Rose Responses
Walford Davies chant
Parry Never weather beaten sail
Mendelssohn Verleih’ uns Frieden
Ireland Greater love hath no man
Choral Evensong at St Bartholomew the Great
Sunday 24th June, 6.30pm
St Bartholomew the Great
No admission charge
Artists:
The Choir of St Bartholomew the Great
Rupert Gough, Director of Music
Jonathan Eyre, organ
Programme:
Howells Evening Service in G
Rose Responses
Parry My soul, there is a country
Breath of Hope
Monday 25 June, 7.30pm
St Stephen Walbrook
Tickets £20 (includes interval glass of wine)
An enchanting programme for woodwind and piano, embracing music from home – Vaughan Williams’ Six English folksongs and Finzi’s Five bagatelles – and abroad. Ravel’s Le tombeau de Couperin (1914-17) is a series of memorials to the composer’s friends who had died fighting. A spirit of hope and vitality is captured in Lili Boulanger’s D’un matin de printemps, despite being written shortly before Boulanger’s untimely death in 1918, and continued in Poulenc’s Sextet.
Artists:
New London Chamber Ensemble
Robert Manasse, flute
Melanie Ragge, oboe
Neyire Ashworth, clarinet
Fraser Gordon, bassoon
Alexia Cammish, horn
Michael Dussek, piano
Programme:
Holst Wind quintet in A flat, op. 14
Finzi Five bagatelles op. 23
Ravel (arr. Mason) Le tombeau de Couperin
Vaughan Williams Six English folksongs
Lili Boulanger D'un matin de printemps
Erwin Schulhoff Divertissement
Poulenc Sextet
All Earthly Things Above: Holst’s Planets
Tuesday 26 June, 7.00pm
St Bartholomew the Great
Tickets £15
Gustav Holst’s monumental Planets, premiered in 1918, as rarely heard – in the composer’s own transcription for piano (four hands), with a new dimension of evocative poetry-reading.
The Steinway Model D Piano is used by kind permission of City Music Society.
Artists:
York2: John York and Fiona York, piano duet
Nickolas Grace, reciter
Rohan McCullough, reciter
Programme:
Holst The Planets
'National Gallery' lunchtime piano recital
Wednesday 27 June, 1.00pm
St Giles-without-Cripplegate
Tickets £15
During the Second World War, pianist Myra Hess had the idea of morale-boosting lunchtime concerts in the National Gallery. Taking place every weekday for six years, throughout even the Blitz, they were an enormous success, attracting and inspiriting many thousands of Londoners. This concert is inspired by the opening performance given by Dame Myra (as she was to become) herself, and features her celebrated arrangement of JS Bach’s Jesu, joy of man’s desiring and Beethoven’s Appassionata sonata – her great stalwart in times of particular trouble.
Presented in association with the Keyboard Charitable Trust
With thanks to Jaques Samuel Pianos Ltd
Artists:
Adrian Brendel, piano
Programme:
J. S. Bach Prelude and fugue in C# minor, BWV 849
Beethoven Piano sonata ‘Appassionata’ in F minor, Op. 57
Brahms Three intermezzi from Op. 119
Chopin Nocturne in F# major, Op. 15 No. 2
Chopin Waltz No. 1 in Eb major, Op. 18
J. S. Bach Jesu, joy of man's desiring
Gathering Storm Clouds
Wednesday 27 June, 7.30pm
St Giles-without-Cripplegate
Tickets £20 (includes interval glass of wine)
Ravishing British music of the early 20th century for piano, drawing on the love of composers for town (Ireland’s London pieces) and country (Vaughan Williams’ rarely heard The lake in the mountains), nature (Delius’s On hearing the first cuckoo in spring and rare works by Ivor Gurney) and history (Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis, transcribed for two pianos). The pastoral idyll is shattered by Bridge’s Sonata for piano, expressing the composer’s reaction to accounts of First World War atrocities.
Generously supported by the John Ireland Trust and the Vaughan Williams Charitable Trust.
With thanks to Jaques Samuel Pianos.
Artists:
Mark Bebbington, piano
with Rebeca Omordia, piano
and Irene Loh, piano
Programme:
Gurney Sehnsucht; The sea; Prelude in D flat major
Ireland London pieces
Vaughan Williams The lake in the mountains
Vaughan Williams Fantasia on Greensleeves (piano duet)
Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis
(arr. Maurice Jacobson and Vaughan Williams for two pianos -
first public performance in modern times)
Delius On hearing the first cuckoo in spring (transcribed for piano duet by Peter Warlock)
Frank Bridge Sonata for piano
Farewell to Arms
Thursday 28 June, 6.00pm
St Stephen Walbrook
Tickets £15
Music and words vividly recalling First World War experiences. Songs by Ivor Gurney (the poet and composer whose life was blighted by his suffering in the trenches), William Denis Browne (died in a Turkish trench in the Dardanelles in June 1915), Gerald Finzi and John Ireland (both deeply affected by the loss of friends and contemporaries), woven together with letters written home from the Front. James MacMillan’s contemporary response to the anguish of war completes the programme.
Artists:
Richard Robbins, tenor
Guy Murgatroyd, piano
Jo Blake Cave, story-teller
Programme:
Howells King David
Gurney Extracts from five songs of Rupert Brooke
Ireland The land of lost content
Browne Arabia; To Gratiana Dancing and Singing
Finzi Farewell to Arms
James MacMillan The children
Flowers of the Field
Friday 29 June, 7.30pm
St Giles-without-Cripplegate
Tickets £20 (includes interval glass of wine)
A programme of music poignantly harking back to a pastoral age devastated by the outbreak of the First World War, combined with settings of haunting war poetry. Includes the Shropshire lad song cycle and The banks of green willow by George Butterworth (killed at the Somme, 1916), Patrick Hawes’ moving setting of Wilfred Owen’s poem I know the music, and Vaughan Williams’ evergreen Lark ascending of 1914. The festival closes with Gerald Finzi’s affecting Requiem da camera, written in memory of friends and colleagues lost in the trenches, and expressing the grief of a nation.
Artists:
Roderick Williams, baritone
City of London Choir
London Mozart Players (Ruth Rogers, leader)
Hilary Davan Wetton, conductor
Programme:
Warlock Capriol Suite
Butterworth Songs from A Shropshire lad
Patrick Hawes I know the music
Butterworth The banks of green willow
Elgar Chanson de matin
Vaughan Williams The lark ascending
Finzi Requiem da camera
Support
We are deeply grateful to CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang LLP, M&G Investments, the John Ireland Trust, the Vaughan Williams Charitable Trust, the Keyboard Charitable Trust, Jaques Samuels Pianos and all our supporters for making this first year of Summer Music in City Festivals possible. We are grateful to the clergy, churchwardens and administrators of St Giles Cripplegate, St Bartholomew the Great, St Stephen Walbrook, St Mary-le-Bow and St Bride's for all their help and support.