Dorset: Milton Abbey Choral Society Concert, Beethoven Symphony No. 9; Russell Pascoe, Secular Requiem

An outstanding concert at Milton Abbey, Dorset: The Milton Abbey Choral Society directed by David Mckee.

Beethoven's Symphony No. 9- Coral, and Russell Pascoe's Secular Requiem.

The libretto of poems assembled by Anthony Pinching for Pascoe's Secular Requiem included poems by Donne, Owen, Hardy, Stevenson, Tagore, Moore, Stephen Anderton, Hitomaro (tr K. Rexroth), Walt Whitman, Dylan Thomas (not performed) and by Anthony Pinching himself.

A secular requiem with a deeply spiritual resonance, especially in the setting of the Abbey. Not that I am opposed to the setting of Latin texts, but it's good to hear thrilling new settings of (mostly) familiar poems about death, grief and renewal, all woven into a work with a deep sense of emotional and musical continuity. It ends on a triumphant and transcendent note.

The performance of Beethoven's 9th Symphony was received throughout with a rapt feeling of appreciation and joy by the Abbey audience. Brilliant orchestra, choir and soloists.

What a privilege. It's a pity that the concert cannot be heard again in this part of Dorset, performed for a much wider audience, perhaps at the Weymouth Pavilion. This is great music, for everyone.

What a shame it wasn't recorded at the Abbey. I already want to hear it again, and to give copies of a recording of the work to friends who would appreciate it and find it consoling.

From Russell Pascoe's website:

"March 2013 - the first performance of Pascoe's Secular Requiem, commissioned by The Three Spires Singers, conductor Christopher Gray with soloists Catherine Wyn-Rogers and Stephen Roberts. The work is a contemporary response to loss and is structured around the key phases of grief through poems that do not require any specific faith, but does not exclude it. The text was assembled by Professor Anthony Pinching and draws on the poetry of John Donne, Thomas Hardy, Rabindranath Tagore, Dylan Thomas, Hitomaro, Stephen Anderton, Walt Whitman and Anthony Pinching"

See also Cadogan Hall review

"... a work that received a thunderous standing ovation at its recent premiere in Truro. A Secular Requiem deals with the subject of death, through a magnificent libretto compiled from the words of some of our greatest poets, in music that is by turns searching, anguished, haunting, frenzied, funny and heart breaking, but concludes in a blaze of optimism.

‘Russell Pascoe’s Requiem was outstandingly beautiful and I wish it could be heard in concert halls and churches up and down the land.’ (Daily Mail)

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