This Is London 11 Nov

8
Quite which Coronation Mozart’s
beautiful Mass K317 was first performed
at and which earned it its nickname isn’t
certain but it was either Francis I of
Austria in 1792 or Leopold II the
previous year in Prague. Mozart wrote
eighteen Mass settings of which this and
the unfinished ‘Great’ C minor are
amongst his finest. By way of
complementing the Mass, the strings of
the Brandenburg Sinfonia will play
Mozart’s wonderfully light-hearted
Divertimento in F K138 in three
movements the second of which has a
beguiling melody for the first violins and
the final ‘Presto’ is a helter-skelter finale.
Richard Blackford’s (b1954) Mirror of
Perfection was written in 1995 after the
composer had had a five-year fallow
period. Visiting Assisi that year he was
The Whitehall Choir on the steps of St John’s Smith Square.
WHITEHALL CHOIR PERFORM MOZART CORONATION MASS
The Whitehall Choir is to perform an imaginative concert
with the Brandenburg Sinfonia and four rising star soloists
on 22 November (19.30) in St John’s Smith Square –
Mozart’s Coronation Mass and Richard Blackford’s
amazing Mirror of Perfection.
deeply moved and affected by what he
learned about St. Francis. The most
telling point for Blackford was how the
Saint ‘stripped away everything
superfluous’. This inspired him to
compose this work with the same ethic.
Thus, the music eschews the
complexities of much contemporary
music and focuses on the clarity of text
and time honoured polyphonic writing.
The text is by St Francis and forms a
varied seven movement cantata for
choir and small orchestra with soprano
and baritone soloists, Eve Daniell and
Henry Neill.
Musical Director Paul Spicer is an
internationally recognised choral
conductor, partly through the many CDs
he made with the Finzi Singers for
Chandos Records. He conducted Bach
Choirs in Chester and Leicester before
moving to conduct the Bach Choir in
Birmingham in 1992. He taught at the
Royal College of Music between 1995
and 2008, and now teaches choral
conducting at the Birmingham
Conservatoire, where he also directs
both chamber choirs, and at Oxford and
Durham Universities.
The Whitehall Choir is one of
London’s leading amateur choirs. It has
a varied repertoire including challenging
unaccompanied pieces as well as larger
choral works, and looks to present a
selection of more rarely performed
pieces alongside favourite classics. The
Choir performs regularly at major central
London concert venues, alongside
professional orchestras and soloists,
and has an extensive repertoire from the
Renaissance to the twenty-first century.
They have recorded 3 popular CDs, all
of which are available from the website
www.whitehallchoir.org.uk
For tickets to the 22 November
concert, telephone 020 7222 1061 or
for full details, go to the St Johns Smith
Square web site www.sjss.org.uk
CHRISTMAS CAROLS AT ST JAMES’S
The first Christmas Concert of the
year will take place on 17 November
(19.00) at St James’s Church Piccadilly.
The first part is devoted to the World
Première of Howard Blake’s ‘Snowman
Rhapsody, and will be performed by
17-year old pianist, Julian Trevelyan.
In the second half, sopranos Alison
Langer and Nicola Said will be joined by
Lawrence Thackeray, tenor, and Jacob
Bettinelli, baritone, singing seasonal
songs of great charm and lyricism. They
will be accompanied by Julian Trevelyan,
this time playing the violin, Ozlem Celik,
clarinet, and Keith Beresford, piano.
Tickets at the door on the night.
t h i s i s l o n d o n m a g a z i n e • t h i s i s l o n d o n o n l i n e