Son of God Mass

Harrow Choral Society’s summer concert features music from the English Renaissance to the 21st century with works by Tallis, Purcell, Handel and Mozart as well as contemporary composers James Whitbourn and Will Todd.

The major work in the concert is James Whitbourn’s Son of God Mass. It is unusual in that it features a soprano saxophone which will be played by Huw Wiggin, Professor of Saxophone at the Royal Academy of Music. Huw will also join the choir in two jazz interpretations by the British composer Will Todd of the traditional hymns, Amazing Grace and Come Down, O Love Divine.
Music by Purcell will include the final two movements from his opera Dido and Aeneas. Soprano soloist Hilary Cronin will sing Dido’s lament When I am Laid in Earth, followed by the choir in the final chorus With Drooping wings. She will also perform Handel’s Eternal Source of Light Divine, written for the birthday of Queen Anne in 1713. This is complemented by another Handel piece, the chorus Let their Celestial Concerts All Unite, in which the angels sing a hymn of praise at the end of his oratorio, Samson.

The concert will also include a performance by Hilary accompanying the choir of Mozart’s Laudate Dominum, the fifth movement of his sacred choral work Vesperae solennes de confessore.