Previous Seasons

Here are some highlights of LCC's work over the past few years.

Summer 2009

Thursday 9 July 2009, 7.30pm
Cadogan Hall, Sloane Terrace, SW1

Handel: Coronation Anthems
Handel: Foundling Hospital Anthem
Handel: Music for the Royal Fireworks

Handel, who died 250 years ago, wrote four splendid anthems for King George II's coronation, the best-known being 'Zadok the Priest'. As a generous benefactor of Coram's Foundling Hospital, he contributed a new anthem for a fundraising concert. The Foundling Hospital Anthem incorporates music from several previous works and ends with the 'Hallelujah Chorus' from Messiah. That same concert also included his exultant Royal Fireworks Music.

Spring 2009

Saturday 28 March 2009, 7.30pm
Barbican Hall, Silk Street, EC2

Mozart: Coronation Mass in C
Mendelssohn: Symphony no. 2 'Lobgesang' (Hymn of Praise)

with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Mozart's 'Coronation' Mass is one of his best loved and most popular sacred works. Composed in 1779 for the Easter Day service in Salzburg Cathedral, it later gained its name from being performed at the coronations of both the Emperor Leopold II and his son Francis II. The Mass setting is extremely varied – ceremonial and celebratory in style, but concise in form.

The bicentenary of Mendelssohn's birth is marked by a performance of his magnificent choral symphony. This was written in 1840 for a grand festival in Leipzig, celebrating the 400th anniversary of Gutenberg's printing press and its contribution to human enlightenment.

A three-movement orchestral sinfonia leads to an extended finale for soloists and chorus – a cantata on biblical texts, praising God and rejoicing in the triumph of light over darkness. While the structure of the symphony is reminiscent of Beethoven's Ninth, the choral movements are strongly influenced by Bach.

Autumn 2008

Thursday 6 November 2008, 7.30pm
Cadogan Hall, Sloane Terrace, SW1

The Duke Ellington Sacred Concert
with Nina Bennet (soprano) and Big Band

Duke Ellington, bandleader, pianist and composer of big-band jazz, had a deep religious faith. In his last decade he composed the music for a series of remarkable Sacred Concerts that he and his orchestra gave from 1965 onwards. London Concert Choir presents a suite of this music, which combines jazz, classical, spirituals and gospel, blues and dance. As Ellington himself said, "Every man prays in his own language, and there is no language that God does not understand".

Summer 2008

Thursday 10 July
Guildhall, Gresham Street, EC2

Haydn: The Creation (sung in English)
with Counterpoint period instrumental ensemble

During his visits to London in the 1790s Haydn was greatly impressed by the oratorios of Handel and resolved to emulate his example. The words of The Creation, derived from the Bible and Milton’s Paradise Lost, describe the successive creation of the universe, the Earth and its inhabitants and finally, Adam and Eve. There are fine solo arias and joyful Handelian choruses of praise and thanksgiving, while Haydn’s orchestration vividly depicts the wonders of the natural world. The Creation represents Haydn at his finest and its continuing popularity is well deserved.

Spring 2008

Thursday 20 March 2008
Barbican Hall, Silk Street, EC2

Beethoven: Mass in D (Missa Solemnis)

with Canticum
and the English Chamber Orchestra

Beethoven himself regarded his monumental setting of the Latin Mass as his greatest work. Completed in 1823, it is one of the supreme choral masterpieces, combining awe-inspiring grandeur with a fervent spiritual intensity. Beethoven's musical interpretation of the text stretches its performers to the limit as he seeks to give the deepest expression to every word, within the architectural structure of the whole. The score bears the heading "From the heart – may it go to the heart".

Autumn 2007

Wednesday 31 October
St Columba's Church, Pont Street, SW1

Britten: St Nicolas
Elgar: Serenade for Strings
Elgar: Give unto the Lord

with Andrew O'Brien (tenor)
and Orchestra

St Nicolas, the patron saint of children, was the fourth-century Bishop of Myra in Asia Minor. Britten's engaging cantata, composed in 1948, celebrates the saint's 'piety and marvellous works'. In recounting the story of his life from birth to death, it includes such legendary episodes as his calming of a storm at sea and restoring three young boys to life.

2007 is The Year of Elgar, celebrating the 150th anniversary of the composer's birth. Elgar's Serenade was one of his earliest works to become well known, but is typical of the composer in its Englishness. The grand ceremonial anthem Give Unto the Lord was commissioned for a festival at St Paul's Cathedral in 1914; appropriately, it concludes with a prayer for the blessing of peace.

Summer 2007

Thursday 12 July 2007
Cadogan Hall, Sloane Terrace, SW1

Rodgers and Hammerstein: The Great Musicals

A celebration of five of Rodgers' and Hammerstein's best-loved musicals. Written in the 1940s and 50s, all are full of life-enhancing songs and choruses in which the wit of the lyrics is matched by the inspiration of the music. The mood ranges from the exuberant – 'Oklahoma', 'June is Bustin' Out All Over', to the uplifting – 'Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'', 'You'll Never Walk Alone'; and from the positive – 'I Whistle a Happy Tune', 'The Lonely Goatherd', to the defiant – 'Many a New Day', 'I'm Gonna Wash that Man right outa my Hair', and the romantic – 'If I Loved You', 'I Have Dreamed' and 'Some Enchanted Evening'.

Spring 2007

Tuesday 20 March 2007
Barbican Hall, Silk Street, EC2

Brahms: Symphony No. 3 and German Requiem

with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Winter 2006

Tuesday 19 December 2006
Cadogan Hall, Sloane Terrace, SW1

Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on Christmas Carols
Bach: Magnificat