SOUNDS AND SWEET AIRS

SOUNDS  AND SWEET AIRS

Writtle Singers at All Saints' Church

16.07.16


Marking 400 years since Shakespeare's death, an enjoyably varied selection of choral works inspired by his words.
Beginning with a piece often heard on All Saints' aisle, Mendelssohn's Wedding March, in a witty, wordless arrangement by conductor Christine Gwynn.
More orchestral manoeuvres in Schubert's Sylvia, and plenty of opportunities to compare different settings of the same text: Come Away Death, for example, by way of Finland and New York, A Lover and His Lass from Shakespeare's time and our own – one of the Rutter Madrigals which ended the evening.
Even the Weird Sisters get a look in, their Double Double bubbling away in a dark, dramatic setting by Jaakko Mantyjarvi.
Local composers represented, too, with a richly traditional Winter Wind from Martin Taylor, and an inventive Sonnet 8 [Music to Hear] from Janet Wheeler, ending, sublimely, with a choral sigh.