Pomp & Circumstance Concert for The Queen

Celebrate The Queen in the spectacular setting of Gloucester Cathedral, this June.

Always a favourite with local culture vultures, Gloucester Choral Society will be putting on a very special concert of choral music at Gloucester Cathedral on Saturday 2 June 2012 – entitled Pomp & Circumstance: Concert for The Queen.

The forthcoming event will feature conductor Adrian Partington, Ashley Grote on organ and the Castle Brass quintet – in an evening that ‘honours both a remarkable reign and the dappled splendor of English choral music’.

Audience members can expect a very regal celebration in an evening evoking Her Majesty’s coronation in June 1953. The starburst of Handel’s ‘Zadok the Priest’ complements Parry’s glowing ‘I Was Glad’, with its stirring shouts of ‘Vivat! Vivat Regina!’

While movements from Vaughan Williams’ ‘Mass in G Minor’, with its haunting echoes of Tallis, contrast with Walton’s glittering ‘Coronation Te Dum’.

Fanfares of burnished brass set off the plangent beauty of S.S. Wesley and Herbert Howells, according to organisers, with the concert closing with Britten’s striking setting of the National Anthem – a single, sweeping, soul-stirring crescendo.

Dubbed ‘a perfect evening in a perfect setting’, we can’t think of a more noble way to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee this June.

© SoGlos

Friday 18 May 2012