Buxton Musical Society commemorates First World War

The society is holding a concert at St John’s Church, Buxton, on Sunday, November 9, which will open with the orchestra playing the overture to Prince Igor which was first performed in this couintry at the outbreak of the Great War.

The main work of the concert is Elgar’s setting of some of Laurence Binyon’s poems ‘The Spirit of England’ which shows his response to the tragic events on the continent. Frequently performed during the first half of the twentieth century it has been sadly neglected in more recent years but is now enjoying a revival with a recently released recording from the Philharmonia with the LSO Chorus and another soon to come from the Hallé.

The soprano soloist in the Elgar is Claire Seaton who, in this 150th anniversary of his birth, will also sing Richard Strauss’s final and most contemplative work, the Four Last Songs. Strauss who had lived through both world wars wrote these songs shortly before he died and they are suffused with a sense of calm, acceptance, and completeness.

Another German composer completes the programme when the chorus and orchestra perform Brahms’s Schicksalslied or ‘Song of Destiny’. Although quite short it has sometimes been called the “Little Requiem” because it contains within it many stylistic and compositional characteristics of the much larger ‘German Requiem’.

The concert starts at 7.30pm. Tickets costing £12 (£10.50 concessions) are available from the Buxton Opera House, tel. 0845 127 2190 or on the door.