A seasonal programme featuring English Christmas music by Vaughan Williams and Finzi, as well as Dvorak's melodious Mass in D. There will be carols for choir with some audience participation.

Programme:

Dvorak: Mass in D
Finzi: In Terra Pax
Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on Christmas Carols
Carols & other seasonal music

Kiandra Howarth, soprano
Anna Harvey, mezzo-soprano
Thomas Elwin, tenor
James Newby, bass-baritone

The Waynflete Singers

London Mozart Players

Andrew Lumsden, conductor

More about this concert:

The Waynflete Singers celebrate the festive season with music that takes you from the Gloucestershire hills to the Czech countryside. Dvorak's Mass in D was composed for the consecration of a chapel in a castle belonging to the founder of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Art. This tuneful Mass setting reminds us less of the Catholic Church and rather more of the hills, valleys, woods and rivers of Dvorak's homeland.

Finzi's Christmas scene, In Terra Pax, was composed after he visited Chosen Hill outside Gloucester to hear the bells ring in the New Year. This beautiful reflective piece combines the poetry of Robert Bridges with St Luke's memorable narration of the shepherds and the angels’ song.

Finzi was accompanied on his visit by Vaughan Williams, whose Fantasia on Christmas Carols arranges the carol folk melodies of rural England into a work that is both joyous and contemplative, a marvellous evocation of the spirit of Christmas.

The London Mozart Players will be conducted by Andrew Lumsden and will add their own special Christmas contribution to an enticing festive programme.

For a foretaste of our Christmas concert and Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on Christmas Carols, listen to us singing here with Winchester Cathederal Choir: