Hortus Conclusus

Love in the Garden

Saturday 9 July 2022, 7.30pm

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St Stephen's Church, 38-42 Rochester Row,
London SW1P 1LE

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Directed by David Allinson

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Victoria, Missa Trahe me post te

motets by Guerrero, Victoria and Lassus

madrigals by Wilbye, Ramsey and Pilkington

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A summer night of pastoral delights, of gods, heroes and nymphs ... and sweet honey-sucking bees.

 

In this programme of sacred and secular Renaissance music, conceived for the gardens of Stowe House, we sing luxurious settings of the Song of Songs by Victoria, Guerrero and Lassus — in which the beloved is wooed in a garden of sensual delights.

 

Victoria’s Missa Trahe me post te is a scintillating Mass based on his own motet: ‘Draw me after you; we will run in the scent of your ointments’.

 

Balancing the sacred works, our selection of ravishing English madrigals echoes the Arcadian gardens of Stowe House, in which the Greek muses stand sentinel, hard by an Elysian field. We sing to Oriana, the muse of astronomy, but also to fallen heroes while the bees buzz among the blooms. As darkness falls we embrace the exquisite melancholy of dusk by singing the greatest madrigal written in English, Wilbye’s Draw on sweet night.

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This concert has been moved from its original date and venue of 25th June at St George's Bloomsbury, owing to the rail strikes scheduled for that date.