Â鶹Éç

Each of the works featured in this collaborative concert takes comfort in the prospect of a world beyond, whether discerned in the beauty of nature, in the power of human imagination, or in paradise after death.

Presented in Imogen Holst’s arrangement for chamber orchestra and voices, Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb sets the extraordinary poetry of nineteenth-century asylum inmate Christopher Smart. An ecstatic ode to the divine he perceived in abundance in the world around him despite his confinement – whether in his cat’s morning ritual, the simple beauty of flowers, or the bravery of a mouse – Smart’s text is brought to life by some of Britten’s most masterly word-setting.

Mahler’s ‘O garish world, long since thou hast lost me’ takes a contrasting perspective: a rejection of the world’s mundane tumult in favour of a personal ‘heaven’ of love and song. Meanwhile Kim Porter – herself a former Â鶹Éç Singer – sets Harlem Renaissance poet Georgia Douglas Johnson’s ode to the self-expression and the pursuit of a free and fulfilled life.

At the heart of the programme is Fauré’s Requiem, written shortly after the death of the composer’s father in 1888. A serene, consoling vision of peace and ‘happy deliverance’ after death, the work remains one of the most enduringly popular treasures of choral music, and is performed here in the original chamber orchestra version rediscovered by editor John Rutter in Paris’ Bibliothèque nationale after a century of neglect.