Music about music

We turn our attention to music. Of course, you always do that when you sing in concert, but here Ars Nova has selected a number of works which, rather than singing about nature, the seasons, love or the Lord himself, are for the most part about….the music itself. 

An almost unavoidable work in such a program is of course the English composer Benjamin Britten’s Hymn to Saint Cecilia, a tribute to the patron saint of music, which is celebrated in the Catholic Church on 22 November. 

The program is centred on British composers: from the Renaissance a group of poetic madrigals by Thomas Morley, Thomas Weelkes, Orlando Gibbons and a french visit by Arcadelt. Among the stepping stones on the road to the present, we find, in addition to Britten, Arthur Sullivan’s beautiful The Long Day Closes in a version for men’s voices. He was a composer who is often wrongly remembered only for his operettas in the duo Gilbert and Sullivan. His heir in the English musical milieu was Edward Elgar, who is represented here with one of his most beloved works, There is sweet music. There is a small detour to Germany in the form of Franz Biebl’s Ave Maria, which is potentially the piece of music with the most goosebump-inducing chords. Originally written for a chorus of firemen!

From our time we hear Sing to the moon by the jazz-inspired singer Laura Mvula, Now may we sing by Cecilia McDowall, one of the leading choral composers of her generation, and Cecilia Virgo by James MacMillan, whose fantastic music will be presented at all Ars Nova concerts in 2024. The concert ends with Wild Musick by Roxana Panufnik, who got a lot of attention last year because she had composed part of the music for the English coronation.

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