Saturday 24 June 2017 at 7:30pm
Sherborne Abbey

English choral music for a summer’s evening

After our Grand European Tour earlier in the year, this time we are staying at home: join us for a summer’s evening of British music from across the centuries.

Some of the finest choral music written in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century for our churches and cathedrals forms the backbone of our programme, with anthems such as Elgar’s Give unto the Lord, Finzi’s God is gone up, and motets by Stanford, but there is also music from the Tudor period, with William Byrd’s wonderful Mass for Four Voices, and anthems by contemporaries such as Tallis and Gibbons. Finally there is a reminder of a little of our traditional folksong heritage, with songs arranged by Bairstow, Holst, Warlock and Vaughan Williams.

Byrd Mass for four voices, Ave verum corpus
Elgar Give unto the Lord
Finzi God is gone up
Gibbons O clap your hands together
Harwood O how glorious
Naylor Vox dicentis
Philips Ascendit Deus
Stanford Justorum animae, Beati quorum via, Coelos ascendit hodie
Tallis O Lord give thy Holy Spirit, Loquebantur variis linguis, O nata lux, If ye love me
Bairstow The oak and the ash
Holst I love my love
Vaughan Williams The turtle dove
Warlock Yarmouth Fair