NDR Chor

English Masters of Choral Music

To mark the 75th anniversary of the NDR Chor, Klaas Stok and his choir devote a concert to the masters of English choral music: Purcell, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Britten and McMillan. The programme ranges from Baroque music to the present day. As in one of the choir's very first concerts in 1946, the evening opens with a chorus from Purcell's »Dido and Aeneas«. Benjamin Britten's »Hymn to St Cecilia« sings the praises of music as such. And Ralph Vaughan Williams's Mass in G minor was the first big a cappella setting of the Mass with an unmistakable English timbre to be written since the works of William Byrd in the 16th century. The concert closes with a contemporary work: James MacMillan's »Laudi alla Vergine Maria«, where highly ornamented solos alternate with lyrical passages and more freely written sections. The Scottish composer took the text from Dante's »Divine Comedy«.