Good Friday concert in Nantwich

We understand from locally based members of the Nantwich Singers that there is significant interest in their concerts by Audlem residents.

Tony's Metcalfe's final concert as Director of the Nantwich Singers will be on Good Friday, April 3rd, at 7.30 pm in St Mary's Church, Nantwich.

The programme will consist of choral pieces for Good Friday.

The main work will be John Rutter's 'Requiem', now firmly established as one of the best loved and atmospheric of modern devotional works for Passiontide – almost 30 years old but as fresh as it was back in 1986 when it was composed. The piece is accompanied by a small orchestra – flute, oboe, cello, harp and timpani, as well as organ.

The other items in the concert will be

• Allegri's setting of psalm 51 (Miserere), the rights to the performance of which were jealously guarded by the Vatican and attracted large crowds of tourists with its stratospheric phrases for the top sopranos . The young Mozart famously smuggled out a copy of the music which he had scribbled down during a performance.
• Two of Poulenc's 'Motets for the season of Lent', 'Tristis est anima mea' (an exploration of Christ's thoughts before he was abandoned by his disciples and arrested on the Mount of Olives) and 'Tenebrae factae sunt' an account of Jesus's final words from the cross.
• Geualdo's Caligaverunt oculi mei (my eyes are darkened by my tears) from his Responsoria – this piece contains a reworking of material used in the composer's setting of 'O vos omnes'.
• Lotti's magnificent 8-part Crucifixus and Stainer's well-known " God so loved the World"

The programme will last for a little over an hour without an interval, and because it forms part of St. Mary's liturgical programme for Passiontide there will be no charge for admission.

There will however be a retiring collection towards the not inconsiderable expenses which the concert involves.

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