Faure’s Requiem at Easter
Fresh from their successful tour of Asia, Sydney Chamber Choir starts the year with their Easter concert of which the centrepiece is Fauré’s Requiem, with The Metropolitan Orchestra and soloists Belinda Montgomery and Alexander Knight. Conducting this concert will be Richard Gill OAM, the incoming music director of the Sydney Chamber Choir.
Fauré’s Requiem is more a lullaby of eternal rest than an expression of divine judgment: death as ‘an aspiration towards happiness above, rather than as a painful experience.’ This performance of the early chamber orchestra version, faithful to the
composer’s intentions, emphasises the sublime intimacy of this exquisite music.
Also on the programme Stravinsky’s Mass for choir and winds written in the 1940s, which possesses a sense of profound religious insight underlying an austere surface. Stravinsky wrote this mass of his own volition rather than on commission and the overwhelming impression is of a work of art created out of inner necessity.
Mary Finsterer’s Kyrie – the first movement of a new mass – is an exciting contemporary expression of the ancient tradition of composing music for the Christian liturgy. Finally, reaching back across the centuries, excerpts from Palestrina’s passionate and profound Music for Maundy Thursday unites the themes of sorrow, compassion and love.
Programme:
FAURÉ G Requiem / STRAVINSKY I Mass for choir and winds/ FINSTERER M Kyrie (World Premiere)/ PALESTRINA G Music for Maundy Thursday (excerpts)
Tickets Adult: $40 – $85/ Concessions available/ Booking fees may apply
