Exultate Singers A Sense of the Divine
David Ogden conductor
Tallis Spem in Alium
Orlando Gibbons O Clap Your Hands
Purcell Thou Knowest Lord
Byrd Laudibus in Sanctis
Bruckner Os Justi
Vaughan Williams Mass in G minor (‘Gloria’)
David Bednall The Souls of the Righteous
Orazio Benevoli Dixit Dominus
Tavener Mother of God, Here I Stand
Tippett Steal Away
Finzi White Flowering Days
Morten Lauridsen Mid-winter Songs
Ireland The Hills
Charles Parry There is an Old Belief
Traditional (arr Barbara Rusbridge) Sweet Thames Flow Softly
Following last year’s sell-out concert, the Exultate Singers return to perform another beautiful sequence of ‘divine’ music, both sacred and secular, from celebrated renaissance choral works to arrangements of contemporary English songs.
At the heart of the programme stands Tallis’ masterwork Spem in Alium, whose resplendent surround-sound performance, with its gradual accumulation of voices from one to forty, must count as one of the most thrilling passages of music of all time.
This magnificent performance is complemented by Orazio Benevoli’s rarely heard 24-part Dixit Dominus, first performed in St Peter’s Rome with six choirs positioned around the dome, and in this year of the Olympics, the glories of English choral music, including excerpts from Vaughan Williams’ sumptuous Mass in G minor.
‘Exultate produced a purity of sound worthy of King’s College, Cambridge… nothing could have been simpler or more beautiful.’ The Guardian
exultatesingers.org
Promoted in collaboration with St George’s Bristol.