Requiem to Die For - Charivari Agréable at Exeter College Chapel

Today's choral concert by Charivari Agréable in Exeter College Chapel, Oxford, was a heavenly evening.

 The choice of music was solemn, starting with the Requiem by Antonio Lotti, a dark, beautiful and little known piece. 

It was followed by Alessandro Scarlatti's Salve Regina, then Johann Ernst Bach's very sombre psalm setting De Profundis.

In the second half we heard three pieces by English composers: the Elizabethan John Bull's setting of the metrical psalm Attend Unto To My Tears, Maurice Greene's intensely gloomy Lord, Let Me Know Mine End, and Purcell's setting of the text of the funeral service, "Man that is born of woman hath but a short time..."

The quartet of singers, Olwen Lintern-Smyth (soprano), Henry Kimber (counter-tenor), Colin Danskin (tenor) and Jonathan Pratt (bass) blended their voices into a divine harmony that soothed and inspired the soul.

In between, Kah-Ming Ng performed some suitably grave music on the chamber organ: a fugue by J.E.Kindermann, and Thomas Tomkins' Sad Pavane for These Distracted Times.

    The season continues and this concert programme will be repeated on 20th August 2023.

To book see www.charivari.co.uk