Benjamin Britten: A Ceremony of Carols
Lili Boulanger: Vieille Prière Boudhique
Psalm 24
Psalm 129
Benjamin Britten composed his Ceremony of Carols on board ship in 1942, while traveling back from self-imposed exile in New York. He had collected texts of ten English Christmas carols dating from the 14th to 16th centuries, and set these for choir with harp accompaniment. He added a Latin plainchant at the beginning and end, and a spellbinding interlude for solo harp at the mid point.
Lili Boulanger was the first woman to win the Paris Conservatoire’s prestigious Prix de Rome. In her short life (she died aged 24, in 1918) she produced a considerable body of highly original work, including settings of Psalms, two of which we will be performing. The Vieille Prière Bouddhique is one of her last works, a setting of a prayer from the Buddhist sacred text the Visuddhimagga, expressing the wish that all people, all creatures and all things shall be well.
