O Ecclesia, Hildegard von Bingen
Te lucis ante terminum, Thomas Tallis
Night Prayer, Alec Roth
Nunc Dimittis, from The Short Service, Orlando Gibbons
Quemadmodum, John Taverner
In Pace, John Sheppard
Compline, Lucy Walker

Songs of Farewell, Hubert Parry

Conducted by Tom Edney and David M. Harris

A poignant and peaceful musical landscape, exploring composers’ responses to the idea of sleep.

The first half follows the form of the Office of Compline, the last service of the day, in a new setting by the brilliant young composer Lucy Walker, which combines enchanting, soporific harmony with ancient Gregorian chant. Alec Roth’s ‘Night Prayer’ is a response to Thomas Tallis’s compline motet ‘Te lucis ante terminum’, also based on Gregorian chant.

The second half turns to sleep in a broader sense, with Hubert Parry’s late masterpiece, ‘Songs of Farewell’. These meditations on the closing of a life were composed in the last two years of Parry’s life and in the depths of the First World War. The six movements set poignant texts by poets including Thomas Campion and John Donne and closing with ‘Lord, let me know mine end’ setting the King James Bible translation of Psalm 39.  

Tickets £15, students £10, under 16s free. On sale from 2 June at 7.45pm