Pomp and circumstance: Music from the 1953 Coronation

Saturday night at the Barbican Centre was anything but ordinary. Performing two works by composers John Adams and Roberto Gerhard, the Crouch End Festival Chorus (CEFC) and London Orchestra da Camera, conducted by David Temple, achieved harmonic brilliance and chilling dissonance in a single evening. The first half of the night was devoted to John Adams’ Harmonium.

An outstanding choral performance by nearly 300 singers of the BBC National Chorus of Wales and the Crouch End Festival Chorus lights up Verdi’s hybrid of opera and devotional music.

Ryan Bancroft and the BBC NOW offer scintillating playing in John Adams’ Harmonium, plus an exciting world premiere from Derrick Skye and a stunning Copland concerto with clarinettist Annelien Van Wauwe.

A huge hall, a huge orchestra and a huge chorus letting rip with a monster of the choral repertoire… We've missed this. 

John Luther Adams piece unfolds with the patience and weight of the geological time, leaving a powerful mark.

The 20th century completely passed Parry's Judith by completely... and it isn't difficult to see why.