4:00pm, Wesley Church Centre, Chester
‘Darest thou now, O Soul, walk out with me towards the unknown region?’
The opening of Vaughan Williams’ setting of Walt Whitman’s non-religious text sets the mood of Chester Bach Singers’ exploration of ‘Journeying On’. This concert reflects the idea of the human journey in its broadest sense, with an emphasis on seeking and searching. It encompasses music sung by the medieval pilgrims on the road to Santiago di Compostella in Spain along with later, Renaissance music based on the psalm ‘Like as the hart desires the waterbrooks’. The Pilgrims in Wagner’s Tannhauser return singing from their journey to Rome while the Hebrew slaves in Verdi’s Nabucco lament their captivity in Babylon. Eleanor Daley’s ‘Upon my heart’ reflects on inner searching while Martin Bussey’s "A life's Parallels" is a setting of Christina Rossetti's contemplation of eternity beyond the grave. The village folk in Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana rejoice on Easter morning while the chorus in Wagner’s Die Meistersinger glories in the fulfilment that music brings. Threaded through the programme is the searching, meditative music of Hildegard of Bingen from the 11th century.
