Monday 2 May 2022 at 7:30pm
Sherborne Abbey
Conductor: Paul Ellis
Soprano: Claire Rutter
Mezzo soprano: Frances Bourne
Tenor: Rhys Batt
Bass: Craig Bissex
Chameleon Arts Orchestra
Part of Sherborne Abbey Festival
After the long enforced break from singing, we’re delighted to be part of the Festival Chorus again and to be returning to the Festival to perform one of Elgar’s finest works, The Kingdom, first planned for performance in 2020. Like Gerontius, The Kingdom was commissioned by the Birmingham Music Festival and first performed there in 1906. Elgar’s final oratorio gives a moving portrait of the lives of Jesus’s disciples following the Ascension and the life of the early Church, recounted by the chorus and four soloists: the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, St Peter and St John, all still reeling from the events of Easter. With rich and colourful orchestral writing and a dramatic vocal style almost operatic in places, this magnificent work is Elgar at his most inspired. Unlike Gerontius, which had a disastrous start, it was popular from the outset and at the first rehearsal the players kept breaking into spontaneous applause. Though it is not as often performed as its predecessor, the conductor Sir Adrian Boult considered it to be Elgar’s greatest choral work – praise indeed!
Photo Len Copland