£10 Free FTE/U18 available on-line (see below) or at the door
Set in the stunning surroundings of Selby’s beautiful Abbey, and laden with music celebrating the mystery as well as the joy of Christmas, this will be a concert to lighten the darkness and lift the gloom.
St Peter’s Singers bring a delightful programme of Christmas Music from across the ages, from the timeless glory of the Renaissance masters to the atmospheric carols of modern-day greats such as John Rutter, Will Todd, Benjamin Britten, Cecilia McDowall and Morten Lauridsen.
Truly a chance to hear the angels sing – and with mince pies and mulled wine on offer, the perfect way to start your festivities!
This celebration of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ choral music, given in honour of his 150th anniversary, explores some of the colours and sounds of what we now recognize as the greatest and most authentic voice of English music to emerge after the Great War.
The programme encompasses both folksong and some of his most sublime spiritual outpourings.
The concert will last about an hour and a half, including an interval, during which refreshments will be served.
Programme
Coelos ascendit hodie
Charles Villiers Stanford
Justorum Animae
Charles Villiers Stanford
Beati quorum via
Charles Villiers Stanford
There is an old belief
Hubert Parry
O taste and see
Ralph Vaughan Williams
O Clap your hands
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Mass in G Minor
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Interval
The Turtle Dove
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Linden Lea
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Reconciliation (from Dona nobis pacem)
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Nunc dimittis
Gustav Holst
Lord, thou has been our refuge
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Vaughan Williams was a man of contradictions, not least as an agnostic with a profound sense and desire for the spiritual. He found his voice as he sought out, preserved and assimilated the folksongs of England, finding in them a simplicity of musical expression a world away from the music of Empire, and then transforming that material into profound high art, capable of speaking to and for a nation in a way his Edwardian predecessors no longer could.
Our programme showcases the influences of his teachers Parry and Stanford which he absorbed but gradually left behind. It includes some of his folksong arrangements, and some of his finest spiritual music – the Mass in G Minor, first performed 100 years ago almost to the day, and the anthem O God our help in ages past.
We were delighted to welcome so many of you to our presentation of Music for Good Friday, which received good reviews. It is always good to see friends and familiar faces, but it was also very pleasing to see and meet people for whom this was their first choral concert or their first concert at Leeds Minster. We hope you enjoyed it ! Judging by the feedback, both music and surroundings contributed to a new and at times very moving experience. We hope you will come again!
We’re pleased now to announce details of the two concerts we will be giving this summer: a Platinum Jubilee recital on June 11 at Leeds Minster, and a trip out of town to St Cuthbert’s church in Pateley Bridge on July 9. You can book for both of them on-line now.
The music for this Jubilee recital is drawn mostly from Queen Elizabeth’s Coronation in 1953, including well-known classics such as Handel’s Zadok the Priest and Parry’s I was glad. The short anthem Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace by SS Wesley, once organist of Leeds Minster is part of the mix, along with movements from Vaughan WIlliams’ Mass in G Minor in this his 150th Anniversary.
The programme looks back briefly, as did the Coronation, to the music of Queen Elizabeth I, and forwards to the current day with a composition by the late Francis Jackson from the 2011 Choirbook for the Queen, and a work by Judith Weir, the current Master of the Queen’s Music (pictured above).
Shaun Turnbull plays the organ and Alex Woodrow directs.
The concert will be followed by a chance to meet members of the choir and other music lovers over a complimentary glass of wine or juice.
Saturday 9 July 2022 7.30pm St Cuthbert’s Church, Pateley Bridge
nr Harrogate, HG3 5LQ
The programme for this recital incorporates a delightful mix of styles and sounds. There’s a nod to the Queen’s Jubilee with two of Handel’s Coronation Anthems and Parry’s I was glad, together with three of his beautiful Songs of Farewell. Rheinberger’s Abendlied (‘Evening hymn’) brings a more reflective mood, while James Macmillan’s Lux aeterna allows us to briefly revisit our Songs of Solace programme from last October, and remember those lost in the pandemic.
Two of Poulenc’s short Motets for a time of penitience take us briefly to the very different sound world of Twentieth century French spiritual music, before we switch to a more relaxed set of secular part songs, including the well-known Linden Lea by Vaughan Williams and Stanford’s gorgeous The Blue Bird. This group finishes with Weaver bird, a short and humorous composition by our in-house duo poet Hannah Stone and composer Matthew Oglesby.
We finish, fittingly for a choir with our name, with two settings of the text Tu es Petrus (You are Peter), one by the 16th century master Palestrina and so one of the earliest known settings, and the other composed for our 40th anniversary in 2017 by Philip Moore, formerly Organist of York Minster.
Anthony Gray plays the organ and Alex Woodrow directs.
Tickets (£10) will be available at the door or on-line. The concert starts at 7.30pm and the bar will be open from 7.00pm
We look forward with great excitement to our presentation of Music for Good Friday, always one of the high points of our calendar, and one we’ve had to forgo for the last two years.
This year we present a programme of absolutely gorgeous music for Passiontide by Italian composers. Gregorio Allegri’s famous Miserere is included, as well as Antonio Lotti’s well-known Crucifixus est pro nobis in 8 parts.
But the real stars of this programme are settings of the Miserere (Psalm 51) and the 13th century latin poem Stabat Mater Dolorosa by Francesco and Domenico Scarlatti respectively. They were uncle and nephew, Francesco being the younger brother of the more famous Alessandro, who was Domenico’s father. They lived at the height of the Baroque period, Domenico being born in 1685, the same year as Handel and JS Bach.
Both these works will sound familiar to lovers of Vivaldi’s Gloria, but with different textures providing additional variety to the ear. Francesco’s Miserere exploits different combinations of soloists, expertly sung by members of the choir, mixed in between full choral movements.
Domenico writes for 10 vocal parts and continuo, demanding considerable virtuosity at times, but achieving a richness and sonority rarely matched in the Baroque era.
He rises superbly to the challenge of setting words that express so eloquently not just the sorrow of Jesus’ mother Mary as she watches her son dying a cruel death, but also the sorrow of any other compassionate human being reflecting on such events. As so often, the music reaches into places that the words, especially the latin ones, don’t necessarily reach.
They are very fine works, deserving of greater exposure. This is a rare chance to hear them live.
The music starts at 7.00pm on Good Friday 15 April 2022 in Leeds Minster, and will last about 75 minutes.
Our ‘Music for Good Friday’ series resumes after the pandemic with a programme of Italian music including Allegri’s famous Miserere.
The Miserere is a setting of Psalm 51 – ‘Have mercy upon me O God after thy great goodness’. Although it properly belongs to the previous day, its penitential nature makes it an entirely suitable response to the crucifixion of Christ. So the programme includes both the plainchant setting by Allegri and Francesco Scarlatti’s more elaborate version from the Baroque age.
The medieval poem Stabat Mater Dolorosa (‘The grieving mother stood weeping while her son hung on the cross’) has been set to music countless times. This setting, by Domenico Scarlatti, exploits all the richness of expression afforded by ten vocal parts and is one of the classics of the Baroque period.
The programme is completed by Antonio Lotti’s famous 8-part setting of the text Crucifixus est prop nobis (‘He was crucified for us’).
Leeds Minster – access
Public parking is available on the street and in the car park opposite the Palace Hotel at the eastern end of Leeds Minster. There is also a large NCP car park next to Leeds Markets on the other side of the railway, and the John Lewis carpark slightly further away.
15 April 2022
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7:00 pm
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8:15 pm
Italian Renaissance and Baroque music for Good Friday
It was heartening to see so many people at our recent recital Songs of Solace. We felt we had maybe struck a chord with a programme of music that acknowledged the grief and loss brought by the pandemic. Now we feel that, although the pandemic is far from over, a Hallelujah or two are in order!
So it is a delight to switch moods, and to celebrate the return of live music-making. We do so by performing one of the greatest choral works of all time, Handel’s Messiah.
This extraordinary Oratorio, with its iconic Hallelujah chorus, its history of fund-raising for charity, and its frequent performance by countless choral societies, has reached further into the national consciousness than any other.
Messiah resonates at almost any point in the year. But it sits firmly in the minds of many as integral to their annual preparations for Christmas.
The opening invocation ‘Comfort ye’ – never more welcome than now – seems to light the Advent candle in the winter darkness more poignantly than one could possibly imagine.
Humanity
The work covers not just the foretelling of the coming of Christ and his birth. It also tells of his Suffering and Death, his Resurrection and Ascension – the full, and rather remarkable, life-cycle!
Yet despite all this, the overwhelming feeling that this amazing music leaves us with is of the humanity of its subject – once a baby, and then ‘a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief’. This is emotionally intelligent, empathetic music, composed by someone who understood the human condition.
Performance details
This performance is given with organ, rather than orchestral, accompaniment. At the time of planning we were unable to predict whether conditions would allow space for an orchestra. We feel this has proved a wise decision. We hope that on this occasion you will enjoy hearing the glory of the Minster’s famous Harrison & Harrison organ deployed on all the familiar arias and choruses. We’re grateful to Tom Moore for agreeing to undertake this herculean task.
Our soloists – Ruby Hendry, Esther Colman, Christopher Trenholme and Quentin Brown – and St Peter’s Singers are directed by Alex Woodrow.
Tickets
We very much hope to welcome you to this concert. Tickets are available below or at the door: £15, Concessions £12, (Free FTE / Under-18). A glass of wine or juice and a free programme is included in the price.
Leeds Minster is a seemingly well-ventilated (!) and spacious building allowing you to space out if you wish. We simply request that, in line with its policy, you wear a face-covering on entering and leaving the building.
Handel’s Messiah returns to Leeds after an unwelcome and enforced absence.
Leeds Minster
Saturday 27 November 2021 7.30pm
Come and hear this glorious, life-affirming music!
Tickets £15, £12 concessions, Free FTE / Under-18s all to include a glass of wine or juice and a free programme
Handel’s Messiah has been a favourite of Yorkshire audiences and choirs for many years, and no wonder. The music and texts exude a warm and sympathetic glow and somehow draw our attention above all else to the humanity of its subject. Feel-good music, that has been sorely missed.
Alex Woodrow directs St Peter’s Singers and a stellar lineup of (mostly) young soloists. Tom Moore accompanies on the Minster’s fabulous Harrison organ.
St Peter’s Singers are proud to present the first major performance of the work in Leeds since the pandemic started. What better way is there to start your preparations for Christmas ?
Leeds Minster – access and Covid security
Leeds Minster is a large and seemingly well-ventilated building, with sufficient room for you to space out as you wish. We welcome everyone to this concert, and make a simple request, in line with the Minster’s policy, that you respect other members of the audience by wearing a face-covering when entering and leaving the building.
Public parking is available on the street and in the car park opposite the Palace Hotel at the eastern end of Leeds Minster. There is also a large NCP car park next to Leeds Markets on the other side of the railway, and the John Lewis carpark slightly further away.
Our presentation of Music for Good Friday 2020 offers a second opportunity to hear Matthew Oglesby’s superb new RequiemPenthos.
Composed to a text by fellow St Peter’s Singer Hannah Stone, this assured and diverse work received its first performance to great acclaim in October 2018. Find out more!
The programme also includes Allegri’s famous Miserere and music by Bruckner and Mauersberger.
St Peter’s Singers’ presentation of Music for Good Friday is an annual event, given by kind permission of Leeds Minster. It provides an opportunity to hear one of the great works of the sacred Oratorio repertoire in a context than a concert hall performance on a Saturday evening cannot provide, and at a price that more people can afford.
Public parking is available on the street and in the car park opposite the Palace Hotel at the eastern end of Leeds Minster. This may be free of charge on Good Friday, but you are advised to check this with the City authorities. There is also a large NCP car park next to Leeds Markets on the other side of the railway.
This programme traces a line through more than a century of English Church Music, from Edward Elgar through Benjamin Britten to Philip Moore.
Outstanding works and deeply moving music, beginning with Philip Moore’s brilliant and exciting Tu es Petrus, commissioned by St Peter’s Singers to celebrate our 40th anniversary and first performed in 2018.
