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Requiem by Candlelight: Huntingdonshire Philharmonic Choir and Players

Sat 2nd November 2019 7:30 pm

Lovers of French Romantic sacred choral music should save the date Saturday November 2nd, and head to St Mary’s Church in Godmanchester where the Huntingdonshire Philharmonic Choir and Players are performing Requiem by Gabriel Fauré and De Profundis by Marcel Dupré, by candlelight. Both Fauré and Dupré earned a living as accomplished organists and teachers, in addition to composing.  While the Fauré Requiem is a firm popular favourite work, the Duprè composition is relatively unknown.  The first UK performance in its full orchestral version was in Ely Cathedral in May 2001. It is thought that Fauré composed the Requiem as a musical tribute to his father, who died in 1885, three years before work on the Requiem began.  It is a serene and peaceful and non-sombre composition. Dupré completed De Profundis in 1917, dedicated to the soldiers who died for France in the First World War.  The work displays a range of expressive contrasts.  The text, in Latin, is Psalm 130, with the addition at the end of the traditional requiem mass responsory  ‘Requiem aeternum’  which brings to mind the Fauré.

Tickets are available online £15 adults, £5 students/children (with no additional fees) from www.huntsphil.org.uk and on the door from 7pm.

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