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Autumn Concert

6:30pm, Sun, 26 Nov 2023

  • Event Details
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  • Type of event: Concert
    Start time: 6:30pm
    End time: 8:30pm
    Venue: Free Church Hampstead Garden Suburb
    North Square
    London NW11 7AG
    Description: 6.30pm Free Church, Hampstead Garden Suburb, North Square,London NW11 7AG

    For our Autumn Concert we joined forces with the Royal Free Music Society Choir, conductor Benjamin Wolf,  and Barnet Symphony Orchestra, conductor Oliver Till, in a programme of English Music with Maja Horvat, violin and Xavier Hetherington, tenor.
    • Samuel Coleridge-Taylor     Hiawatha's Wedding Feast
    • John Ireland              ​​​​​​​Greater Love Hath No Man
    • Benjamin Britten ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​     ​​​​​​​Violin Concerto
    Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's prodigious musical talent was evident while he was still a student at the Royal College of Music and his first major commission sprung from the recommendation of Edward Elgar, who regarded him as "the most talented composer in Britain". Hiawatha's Wedding Feast, based on the poem by Henry Longfellow, was something of a smash hit and was performed 200 times in England within 6 years of being premiered in 1898. Coleridge-Taylor completed two sequel cantatas and an overture over the next two years, and he even named his first child Hiawatha. Novello published the score in advance of the premiere and, although seriously ill, Sir Arthur Sullivan wrote "My boy, I'm coming to hear your music tonight even if I have to be carried".

    John lreland was also a student of Charles Villiers Stanford at the RCM, and his anthem *Greater Love *is one of the classics in choral literature. Written in 1912 for choir and organ, the text is assembled from various parts of the Bible including the Song of Solomon, St John's Gospel and various Epistles of St Peter and St Paul. The heart of the anthem is "Love is strong as death; greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13), which gave this work great poignancy after the start of WWI.