7:30pm Saturday 7th December 2019
St Saviour's Church
25 Sandpit Lane
St Albans
Herts AL1 4DE
Voix de Vivre’s December concert contrasts five of
James MacMillan’s beautiful Strathclyde Motets,
written between 2005-10, with seasonal works by
British and European composers from the late 16th
and early 17th centuries.
The programme also features Britten’s Christmas
cantata A Boy Was Born.
This remarkable tour-de-force of technical mastery
and creative brilliance was completed in 1933 when
he was only nineteen and a student at the Royal
College of Music.
The cantata is scored for eight-part unaccompanied
choir and soprano solo, and comprises six variations
of increasing complexity, all based on a simple
four-note theme.
O beatum et sacrosanctum diem Phillips
O radiant dawn MacMillan
O magnum mysterium Victoria
Sedebit dominus rex MacMillan
Lux aeterna MacMillan
In dulci jubilo Scheidt
In splendoribus sanctorum MacMillan
Hodie Christus natus est Sweelinck
Dominus dabit benignitatem MacMillan
A Boy was born, Op 3 Britten