Spring 2027

Cecilia McDowall, A Fancy of Folksongs

Bob Chilcott, Five Days that Changed the World

Gustav Holst, Excerpts from the Rig Veda, Group3, Op 26

Our Spring programme comprises a truly eclectic range of songs by Cecilia McDowall, Bob Chilcott and Gustav Holst. Cecilia McDowall’s A Fancy of Folksongs is a varied and tuneful offering of some of the best loved songs from the English folk tradition – Green Bushes, The Rambling Sailor, The Crystal Spring and O, no John! The ‘fancy’ of the title refers to the themes of young courtship and romantic love that unify the work. But it also harks back to the Elizabethan era when a ‘fancy’ (or ‘fantasy’) was a free-form style of instrumental music, often on a favourite subject of the time (of all times?!): romance – rather like Cecilia McDowall’s treatment of the folk songs. 

With Five Days that Changed the World, Bob Chilcott has once again written a choral work with a surprising and original theme (like, for instance, his setting of Aesop’s Fables). Here he celebrates five momentous events that changed the course of history: The Invention of Printing; The Abolition of Slavery; The First Powered Flight; The Discovery of Penicillin; and The First Man in Space. We are treated to an energisingly wide sweep of emotion and atmosphere, from gentle meditative rumination via driving rhythm and energy to out-of-this-world awe.

Gustav Holst’s Excerpts from the Rig Veda offers another complete shift in mood and style. From about 1895, the student and young musician Holst became interested in Indian religion and Hindu philosophy – a time known as the ‘Sanskrit Period’ of his musical career. Dissatisfied with the existing stilted translations of Indian sacred texts, the composer enrolled in 1899 on a course at University College London to learn Sanskrit so that he could produce his own translations, which he duly did. Though mostly rooted in the British choral tradition, musically the Riga songs nevertheless incorporate startling modern sonorities and rhythms, and exotic elements of Indian music. This presentation of Hindu religious ideas with a dash of Indian musical tradition strikes us as a remarkably daring thing to do at what was, after all, the height of Christian observance in Edwardian Britain. Though highly regarded by musicians and musicologists, Holst’s Rig Veda songs are not often performed, so our concert is a good opportunity to hear them again or get to know them. The choir’s soprano and alto voices will be singing four pieces: Hymn to the Dawn, Hymn to the Waters, Hymn to Vena and Hymn to the Travellers. Given the wide range of musical styles and themes in our Spring concert, we’re confident that there’s something for everyone. See you there!