Join Chansons for a celebration of Advent music featuring Haydn’s Missa Sancti Nicolai (Mass in G Major).
The first half of the concert presents advent and Christmas seasonal music opening with the Gregorian chant Rorate Coeli before Judith Weir’s modern setting of the same chant, but with an English translation: ‘Drop down, ye heavens’.
Morten Lauridsen borrows from the Gregorian style but with a thoroughly modern and beautiful harmonic twist. Chanson will perform his ‘O Magnum Mysterium’, one of the most beautiful choral pieces written in the modern era.
We continue with ‘Es ist ein Ros entsprungen’ with a setting by Michael Praetorius. The Norwegian composer Knyt Nystedt’s setting of ‘Laudate Dominum’ is then followed by the popular Advent carol ‘The Angel Gabriel’ arranged by David Willcocks.
Two more carols follow ‘Adam lay y bounden’ by Boris Ord and Paul Manz’s ‘E’en so, Lord Jesus, quickly come’ before we finish the first half with one of the great masters of choral music, Claudio Monteverdi, whose work spanned Renaissance and early Baroque. Cantate Domino for Six Voices and continuo, is an exciting setting of several lines from Psalms 96 and 98, exhorting the Christian believer to sing and rejoice and play instruments to celebrate the marvelous gifts of God.
In the second half Chanson will perform Haydn’s Missa Sancti Nicolai, his popular setting of the mass G Major, with guest musicians and soloists:
Eilidh Bisset soprano
Naomi Fester mezzo
Christopher Haggerty tenor
Caspian Plummer bariton
Susan Smart cello
Louise Timney, David Christie violin
Robert Duncan continuo
Join us for a fitting concert on this first Sunday in Advent as we start the countdown to Christmas 2026.