Oxford Pro Musica Singers
Mark Jordan (conductor)
Imogen Russell (soprano)

Details : https://opms.org.uk/event/celestial-harm...

Tickets: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/oxfordpro...

The intimate surroundings of Exeter College Chapel will be the ideal setting for a varied programme of choral music: Celestial Harmonies.

We include a recently composed setting of the Requiem Mass by the young British composer Kerensa Briggs. Her setting of the Requiem Mass for choir, soprano soloist and organ brings “her own colours to the gently assuaging tradition of Duruflé and Fauré“. The piece recently received its first recording and we think this is the first Oxford performance.

The other main work in our programme is Thomas Tallis’s monumental setting of ‘Gaude gloriosa Mater Dei’ (Rejoice O glorious Mother of God). It’s a long piece in eight contrasting musical sections and was probably written in the 1550s during the reign of the catholic Queen Mary Tudor. Tallis uses varied combinations of voices for the different sections, and the piece builds slowly to a powerful conclusion.

Both the main works above are based on plainsong, and we also include Maurice Duruflé’s four motets based on Gregorian themes (1960). Duruflé uses the ancient melodies to build a magical sound world in these brief pieces, as he had done 10 years earlier in his own setting of the Requiem mass.

Full Programme:

Kerensa Briggs
Requiem

Thomas Tallis
Gaude Gloriosa Mater Dei

Maurice Duruflé
Four motets based on Gregorian themes:
- Ubi caritas et amor
- Tota pulchra es Maria
- Tu es Petrus
- Tantum ergo