THE FIRST choral concert in this year’s Petersfield Musical Festival (March 17 to 25) gives the singers a chance to perform one of the greatest and most popular works in the repertoire – Mendelssohn’s Oratorio Elijah.
First performed at Birmingham in 1846, Elijah is a firm favourite with singers and audience alike. The drama of the struggle between the holy prophet and the pagan worshippers of Baal, then with Queen Jezebel, is marvellously captured in the music, and the chorus plays a full part throughout. We welcome back baritone Gary Griffiths to sing the title role at the concert in the Festival Hall on 18 March.
The closing concert of the festival on March 25 is meditative and restrained by comparison. The Petersfield Choir joins the Festival Chorus for the first time in Dvorák’s heart-rendingly beautiful Stabat Mater.
Less well known, but a work of great beauty, it is a major work of its period. Poignantly, as Dvorák started on the composition, his baby daughter died. By the time the work was completed, two more of his children were dead. His grief, and his prayer to share in the Holy Virgin’s pain comes across with almost unbearable vividness.
Tickets online at www.petersfieldmusicalfestival.org.uk or from One Tree Books, Lavant Street.