Howard Goodall ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’ and ‘Eternal Light’; Handel ‘Messiah’ Part III

Concert details

Howard Goodall (born 1958) is well-known as a composer of musicals, choral music and music for television who also presents music-based programmes on both television and radio. Goodall’s setting of Psalm 23, ‘The Lord is my shepherd’, is the theme tune from ‘The Vicar of Dibley’, but has since proved to be an extremely popular piece of music in its own right.  ‘Eternal Light – A Requiem’ was commissioned to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of London Music and was premiered at The Lowry, Salford, in 2008. Goodall’s composition is a 21st century re-interpretation of the traditional requiem which, he says, ‘dangles the carrot of heavenly paradise and wave the stick of eternal damnation in fairly even measure’ without really considering ‘the unbearable pain it causes for those left to mourn’. He breaks with tradition by stripping the traditional Latin text down to a few ‘resonant phrases’ and using sacred and secular poetry to ‘shed new light on the various requiem concepts: peace, everlasting light, grief, comfort … faith in an afterlife’.  The result is a marvellously compelling piece of music – something completely out of the ordinary and not to be missed.

We have paired Goodall’s very modern piece with Part III of Handel’s wonderful ‘Messiah’, which deals with the end of time – the resurrection of the dead and Christ’s glorification in Heaven … although it’s just possible that we will preface our selection with the last item in Part II which is, of course, the famous ‘Hallelujah’ chorus!

Tickets for this concert are now on sale. The cut-off date for online bookings is midnight on Friday 27th March. Tickets purchased online will usually be posted to you, but if there is insufficient time to allow for this then they will be held for you ‘on the door’. Please note that there is a £1 per booking administration charge for online ticket purchases, to cover postage and PayPal administration costs. Tickets are also available from Choir members or from our Ticket Secretary, telephone 01304 620560.

If you have experienced problems when attempting to book online please accept our apologies. We are pleased to report that everything is now working correctly.

Date/Time

Date(s) - 28/03/2015
7:30 pm - 9:45 pm

Holy Trinity Church

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